Opera VPN for P2P and Torrenting – Is it Any Good in 2024?

Opera VPN is a freemium service for Windows, macOS, and Android. Despite being built into the Opera web browser, its Pro version can protect your entire system.

As of writing, it has 3,000+ servers in 33 countries and territories. It’s not the largest network we’ve seen, but it offers a decent number of location options if you live in North America or Europe.

In terms of pricing, you can buy its subscription for as low as $3.99 a month and get a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee. For such a cheap price, Opera VPN can seem like an attractive service for peer-to-peer (P2P) networking.

Is Opera VPN good for P2P?

Unfortunately, Opera VPN isn’t good for P2P. Don’t get it twisted: it doesn’t outright reject peer-to-peer traffic, and you could use it for file sharing and other activities. But we found many reasons why you shouldn’t.

For starters, Opera VPN lacks dedicated hardware for P2P. So, you’ll share its servers with users who surf the Web, stream, or play games.

Because of this, its network is highly susceptible to traffic overload. This can be a problem when you need as much bandwidth as you can get to boost your torrenting speeds.

Actually, the proof is in the pudding. We lost more than 60% of our base internet connection speed.

Here’s the baseline when we were running the uTorrent client:

After connecting to Opera VPN Pro’s Singapore server, it went down to:

Moreover, Opera VPN wasn’t only slow, but also unstable. At one point, the browser crashed shortly after we installed it. Likewise, there were moments when it couldn’t establish a connection for a while.

Since it doesn’t have a kill switch, sudden loss of service can expose your IP address to your P2P network and leak your activity to your ISP.

Speaking of which, Opera VPN did a bad job of keeping our DNS queries private. Our DNS leak check revealed that it still used our ISP’s DNS servers in the Philippines.

The IP it displayed was slightly different from what our leak test revealed too.

Lastly, Opera’s home base is in Norway, a Fourteen Eyes country. Even worse, Chinese investors control most of the company. So, the Chinese government may have backdoors to this VPN’s traffic.

To take care of all that, let us show you some of the best alternatives on the market:

Best Opera VPN alternatives for P2P and torrenting

Opera lacks the qualities you’d look for in a P2P VPN. To protect your privacy and boost your cybersecurity, we recommend these three services instead:

1. NordVPN

Eighty-five percent of NordVPN’s global network supports P2P connections. You can access these specialty RAM-only 10Gbps servers whether you set your protocol to NordLynx or OpenVPN. 

NordVPN may sound Nordic, but it operates under the jurisdiction of Panama.

As a result, the company doesn’t have to comply with any data retention laws and can impose a strict no-logs policy. In fact, it’s the first major VPN service to voluntarily ask an impartial third party (PricewaterhouseCoopers) to audit its claims.

Pros

• P2P-optimized hardware
• Kill switch for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android
• Panama HQ
• Obfuscated, Onion Over VPN, and double VPN servers
• 30-day money-back guarantee

NordVPN

Enjoy top-notch security and a large fleet of P2P-optimized servers with NordVPN.

Try now Visit website

2. CyberGhost

CyberGhost has its own category of RAM-only VPN servers designed for torrenting. In late 2022, it began upgrading to powerful 10Gbps hardware to deliver faster download and upload speeds.

Its headquarters are outside the reach of the Fourteen Eyes Alliance. Plus, its no-data logging policy has been Deloitte-verified.

Pros

• Torrenting-friendly servers
• Kill switch for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android
• Romania HQ
• Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS free trials
• 45-day money-back guarantee

CyberGhost

Benefit from fast torrenting speeds and advanced privacy protection with CyberGhost.

Try now Visit website

3. Proton VPN

Like our other two picks, Proton VPN explicitly marks its servers that support P2P connections, especially BitTorrent traffic. And most of its network is capable of 10Gbps connectivity.

But if you connect to hardware not suitable for torrenting and other peer-to-peer activities, you won’t be disconnected. Instead, Proton will automatically direct your traffic to a P2P-friendly server using its so-called Stateful Firewall.

Pros

• P2P VPN redirection
• Kill switch for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and iPadOS
• Switzerland HQ
• Tor over VPN servers
• 30-day money-back guarantee

ProtonVPN

Enjoy 10Gbps connectivity and a seamless P2P experience with ProtonVPN.

Try now Visit website

Summary

Opera is not a good VPN, much less a peer-to-peer VPN.

It lacks when it comes to speed, optimization, and privacy – all of which are essential to P2P.

So, for the best possible experience, go with a more credible service like the ones we’ve listed here.