Pirate Bay is the world’s best-known torrents site. However, if you are new to downloading torrents, things can be a bit daunting until you get used to it.
Quick Preview show
Besides this, you need to understand what you need to do to keep yourself safe because as popular as The Pirate Bay is, you can still find some suspect files. (Read 5 Sites Similar To The Pirates Bay)
Before heading further, you ought to understand that many files on Pirate Bay are copyright protected, and thus, you also need to take some precautions against disclosing your identity.
In the rest of this guide, you can learn how to download from the Pirates Bay fast, and how you can access the Pirate Bay and stop your internet service provider seeing what you are doing.
Picking Your Torrent Client
Without a torrent client, there is no way you can download a torrent file. If you click on a link, all you will see is a small torrent file. What this does is provide the information for the client. It will scour the BitTorrent network to locate all the segments of the file to download.
Once they are downloaded, they are re-built into the full file. Picking your client is the first step.
There are many clients, and some come with ads or can sell your data, so picking the right one can make or break your experience. Make sure not to install any other apps during the install process.
Popular choices of clients are uTorrent, BitTorrent, Vuze, Deluge, and one not often seen is the ad-free Tixati.
Download and install your client.
The default download location is your ‘Downloads folder,’ yet it is better to select another as anything inside that folder can be uploaded should anyone search for it.
While there are many settings you can change, until you are familiar with torrenting, you can leave these at the default settings.
Downloading from Pirate Bay
How to download from Pirates Bay is straightforward, although it doesn’t appear that way in the beginning.
Here are the necessary steps you need to follow to download your favorite movies and TV shows, or any other content you desire off the Pirate Bay. When you come to download the file, most of the process of downloading the file you want to download is automatic.
- Head to https://thepiratebay.org/ (URL may change depending on if the site is blocked in your region. If it is blocked, it is another reason to use VPN services). You can find proxy sites, although it is hard to say if these are associated with PB, or they are safe.
- On the main screen, you have Browse Torrent, Recent and Top 100. Underneath, you can type in the search bar.
- How to use Piratebay and download torrents is simple, yet it can appear confusing.
- Enter a search term and wait for the results you can check the boxes for All, Audio, Applications, Games, Porn and Other.
- Once you have the results, you have a long list of torrent files for that particular title.
- You can check the results for file size, the number of seeders (individuals sharing the file, higher numbers mean faster speeds).
- You can also see the upload date and the uploaders user name (Pirate Bay doesn’t host any files).
- Select your file by clicking on a link. Links with skulls at the side are an excellent file to download.
- In the next page, you have lots more information regarding the file you will download (Actors names, genre, plot). You can also see information like language, file format, audio specs, the magnet link, and user comments.
- To download the torrent, click on ‘Get This Torrent.’ Your browser may show a popup window informing you the Pirate Bay wants to open your torrent client. Select ‘Open.’ You can set this to always open that kind of link.
- To the side of the Pirate Bay torrent link, you have a magnet icon. These are similar, yet no small file is downloaded to your device.
- If your torrent download isn’t automatic, the client will ask to proceed. Click ‘Start’ inside your client.
- Under downloads, you can see all the users you are downloading from. You may notice their IP addresses and their country (Your IP address will show in other user’s torrent clients).
- When downloads finish, the bar changes color, and you begin seeding. This is you uploading the file to other users. It is common protocol to upload or seed, yet it is safer to stop the seeding of the file.
- You can delete the torrent file from your client without deleting the file you downloaded.
- Head to your download folder and ideally scan the files for viruses. Windows usually notifies you if there is anything suspicious.
- Click on the file to play.
Torrent with a VPN
When you visit the Pirate Bay and any other torrent sites, you do have to use a VPN. There is more than your internet service providers who can see what you are doing.
Copyright trolls scour the internet for torrenters of copyright-protected content. For them to find users of the Pirate Bay can be simple because your IP is made public in a torrent swarm.
Once you use VPN’s, your IP will be encrypted, and even if the new IP shows inside someone else’s client, this is the one from the VPN server and not your real IP.
VPN’s also allow you to bypass government restrictions to access Pirate Bay. With these, you can be a pirate, and no one will be able to access your data and see what torrent files you download.
