This heavily depends on where you live and how your local jurisdiction deals with piracy.

What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t use a VPN while pirating?

For example, torrenting, especially seeding, has a good chance of getting you fined in Germany.

Are free tier VPNs (like Proton VPN) good enough?

Usually not or they are so limited that they are only viable for very small scale piracy.

I don’t want to pay much or anything for a VPN, is a way I can get a good free one, or set one myself somehow (I have experience with selfhosting) ?

If you run a server at home it’s still using your public IP, so a personal VPN (you connecting to your own server) really doesn’t help.

If not, which cheap one do you recommend?

Most VPNs are pretty cheap on monthly basis if you sign up for a couple of years. I’m currently using NordVPN (which is like $3 a month). But If I’d have to pick a new provider at this time I’d go with Mullvad.

Torrents yes, always VPN. If you’re doing the debrid route, not required but personally I still do.

I am a big fan of mullvad VPN as they take no info from you to create an account. Can pay with crypto. No name, email or anything tied to their service. Used proton, nord and pia in the past.

Depends what country you’re in

Depends on how hard your country cracks down on individual piracy. If you’ve heard a friend of yours in the same country being served a copyright notice for pirating; you absolutely need a VPN. If you’ve never heard of this and the idea sounds impossible, you typically won’t need it.

If you will need a VPN; I would heavily recommend Proton VPN for convenience. If you want to selfhost you’re going to need a server in a different country which will still cost you money. Assuming you’ll pay for a typical sbc + gigabit internet + electricity costs + remote maintenance costs and you’ll be looking at a way bigger cost than just 60 euros a year. That’s how much ProtonVPN costs.

If you’re just watching movies and tv I highly recommend just grabbing one of the streaming sites from the masterlist. Use a good ad blocker and you’re golden.

1. The worst that can happen is nintendo sues you for ten times what you have to make an example out of you. More likely is angry isp letters and eventually a fine.
2. Generally no, but they’re better than nothing.
3. Not that I know of. You can kind of set one up yourself on a vps, but that would probably cost more.
4. I would recommend airvpn. They are fairly cheap, accept standard credit/debit cards, as well as crypto or even cash (like actual mailed cash, it’s kinda crazy).

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The free plan on Proton doesn’t let you torrent.

If you are doing any downloads (especially torrents) you should be using a VPN.

1. Your ISP will usually send a letter telling you to stop, in some cases they’ve been known to cut peoples service.
2. Free vpns sell your data and usually have caps, but would probably prevent you from getting letters in the mail.
3. What is cheaper? A vpn account or paying for 2-3 streaming services?
4. I use a nordvpn account I bought from a reseller. Back when I got it nordvpn was still pretty good, but idk how people feel about it nowadays.

You could use i2p for torrent it is free and secure, but slow

Where do you live? If you are in the global South, nobody cares and you can pirate raw as much as you want. If you live in the anglosphere, you should probably get one. I’m the US your ISP might give you a warning or two but they will probably cut service. If you’re in Germany don’t let the VPN ever come down.

In Canada, I’ve never bothered with a VPN. Nobody in Canada has ever been successfully sued for torrent downloading of media, and BC courts have thrown out mass John Doe cases as a waste of the legal system’s time.

Even if it does go to court, there’s a principal in Canadian law that damages can be at most three times the value of the good (for punitive damages). For BluRay that’s, what, $50? They don’t want to go all the way to a judgement to set the legal precedent of a $150 judgement.

Even if courts go beyond treble damages, there’s a maximum fine of $5000 for non-commercial infringement. Even that isn’t with their legal costs to pursue.

So non-commercial piracy is de facto legal in Canada.

(IANAL, this is not legal advice.)

• they sue you for a portion of your future savings, because you single-handedly responsible for their imaginary loss of profits, judge agrees.
• free tier vpns are good enough. But the competition amongst “no log” vpns is pretty fierce. People say you can only trust 3 specific vpns who would rather shut down than spy for a government, but if you’re just downloading movies then you can expand your choices.
• the point of the vpn is to hide your ip address. Self hosting in your home defeats purpose. The best free option is using I2P for torrenting.
• Wait till December for all the Christmas discounts. An annual bundle works out to $2-4 a month.

• Are free tier VPNs (like Proton VPN) good enough?

Other people have already answered this but keep in mind a lot of them are browser based. Even if you are using a web UI for your torrent client that’s not going to protect you. I’ve seen a few people here make that mistake.

• I don’t want to pay much or anything for a VPN, is a way I can get a good free one, or set one myself somehow (I have experience with selfhosting) ?

Have you considered looking into direct downloads?

They are a bit more work but if you are motivated on going in without protection it’s a safer alternative.

If it helps you rationalise the cost of a VPN you can always think about how much money you save compare to paying for subscription services.

Look in a Debird service. And pay with crypto.Then you are completely anonymous. All torrenting is done far from you and sent back over https.