VPN - Whats it all about?

[HSCraft 0]

The recent ISP 6 strikes law in the US has me looking into VPN services strictly for BitTorrent. I have been poking around a bit and have become very interested in AirVPN. Before I buy a subscription I wanted to get some things cleared up, because, I am not very familiar with VPN services.

Here is my situation, I only wish to use it for BitTorrent. I would log into the client, which connects me to the VPN, set up my port forward rules, and then when I open, configure, and use uTorrent (for example), I would be transmitting data in an encrypted and anonymous way?

If I am previously logged into anything (gmail, IRC, whatever) and then turn on the VPN client, that previous traffic stays public? So does that mean that if I then torrent that I have both a private anonymous IP and a public IP going at the same time?

Would it be wise to disconnect from everything, log into the VPN, and then torrent?

Does the VPN ever disconnect and thus put my IP at risk?

Any and all information is extremely welcome. I am very new to this and I'm not yet sure where to go to get my answers.

Thank you!

[Staff 9823]

The recent ISP 6 strikes law in the US has me looking into VPN services strictly for BitTorrent. I have been poking around a bit and have become very interested in AirVPN. Before I buy a subscription I wanted to get some things cleared up, because, I am not very familiar with VPN services.

Here is my situation, I only wish to use it for BitTorrent. I would log into the client, which connects me to the VPN, set up my port forward rules, and then when I open, configure, and use uTorrent (for example), I would be transmitting data in an encrypted and anonymous way?

Hello!

Yes.

If I am previously logged into anything (gmail, IRC, whatever) and then turn on the VPN client, that previous traffic stays public? So does that mean that if I then torrent that I have both a private anonymous IP and a public IP going at the same time?

Yes: already established connections will not be tunneled. Make sure to launch the applications you want to be tunneled AFTER you have connected to the VPN.

Would it be wise to disconnect from everything, log into the VPN, and then torrent?

It is safer, yes, against potential attacks which try to correlate different activities of yours on the Internet and potentially creating a link between your real IP address and the VPN IP address.

Does the VPN ever disconnect and thus put my IP at risk?

It can happen, it is not uncommon that ISPs have short-time black-outs and dynamic IP re-assignments. We have guides to prevent any leak in case of unexpected VPN disconnection.

Kind regards