Virtual private networks are useful in a wide variety of ways, but this is doubly true if you live in Singapore. The country has been subjected to major online censorship programs for a couple of decades. To put it bluntly, the citizens of Singapore have had their internet experienced lobotomized, so to speak.
However, there is both a good side and a bad side to this. While it is true that the average Singaporean online experience is rather handicapped, it can be one of the best places to live for online activities – if one has a VPN.
Governments and ISPs across the world monitor their users' online activities. If found accessing restricted sites or streaming copyright content, you could get into serious legal trouble. Currently, your IP is visible to everyone. I strongly recommend you to get the best VPN for surfing and streaming and hide your identity so that your entertainment doesn’t take a bad turn.
Here are our top picks and reasons why you should be using a VPN.
I use and recommend Express VPN which I consider the best value and most secure VPN in the industry. It is very easy to install on any device including mobile phones. Also, it comes with a 30-days money-back guarantee. If you don't like their service, you can always ask for a refund.
Despite the Singaporean government cracking down on dozens of websites, the nation is a technological and business hot spot, perhaps one of the best in the world.
As a result, Singapore is quite capable of having some extremely fast and reliable internet, if one knows how to unlock this potential. This makes it one of the best places to fully take advantage of one’s bandwidth and download as much content as one can handle.
That’s why we’re going to talk about torrenting.
What is Torrenting?
Torrenting is a lot less complicated than it sounds. It is a specific system of protocols that allows users to share data with one another to download large files safely and securely.
Various torrent programs – Bittorrent and uTorrent being the most popular programs – utilize peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing mechanisms that allow individual users to upload and download data. Instead of downloading files from specific set locations on websites, users just need a torrenting application.
Torrenting is normally used for very large files. You can share and access smaller files as well like trailers or individual songs.
However, people tend to use torrents to access large amounts of files easily ranging in the dozens of gigabytes. This can be anything from entire video games, high definition blu ray films or a band’s entire discography.
Many websites dedicated to offering files such as these come with hard caps that set how much you can download in any given moment or day. Torrents offer no such limits. What you can access is entirely dependent on whether other peers such as yourself have uploaded the data you want. In other words, the more popular the files the easier and faster it will be to finish downloading.
It’s also a great way to share and upload your own files, granted of course that your internet bandwidth is strong and fast enough to handle the file loads.
How VPNs Impact Torrents
A torrent program is an independent piece of software. It is its own application and does not work through your internet browser. This poses its own unique set of pros and cons.
For one thing, many free VPNs that only work with internet browsers will not work with external applications like Bittorrent or uTorrent. That means your real IP address will be visible to your ISP, leaving you vulnerable. Therefore the best course of action for you is to get a VPN that covers all your bases, your browser and torrent application included.
When you are moving large volumes of data, your ISP will take note of this. The worst case scenario is that you may participate in accessing copyrighted data and receive a letter or email from your ISP telling you to stop, lest you risk losing your internet privileges and even receiving a fine. A good VPN will mask your online identity and keep you protected, including when you are engaging in torrents.
Some VPNs, as secure as they can be, are not fast enough to keep up with the more heavy duty needs of larger bandwidths. That’s why we’re going to take a look at the VPNs that offer the absolute best in download and upload torrent speeds for Singapore particularly.
What to Look for in a VPN for Torrents in Singapore
For torrenting needs, you want a VPN that has servers in as many places as possible. It is even more important that your VPN has servers in Singapore as well. The Central Business District and Jurong are top notch places for great internet speeds thanks to being two of the world’s best business hubs. A VPN with servers in both of these locations would be ideal.
You also want to look for the highest average worldwide download speeds, upload rates and lowest ping. Odds are you will be accessing data from users who live all around the world and not just in your country of residence. This is especially the case if you plan on uploading as well as downloading for yourself.
The most popular VPNs achieve average worldwide download rates of 25-30mbps and upload speeds of around 10-15mbps. Average ping scores are anywhere from 2 to 15. These are all great scores that can be achieved in many countries like Japan, the United States, the UK, Canada and more.
But Singaporean rates tend to do even better. With the right VPN, many test results online show that download and upload speeds can reach 100mbps and 50mbps respectively. This makes torrenting in Singapore some of the best anywhere in the world.
There is some preparation to be made for these circumstances though. A VPN will not improve your internet speed but can only match it. So if your ISP can give you a max of 30mbps then your VPN cannot exceed that. You may also wish to invest in some large HDDs for storage depending on how much you are planning on downloading.
Now that we know that internet in Singapore can be lightning fast, let’s take a look at the number one best torrenting VPN for Singapore.
IPVanish
There are several great VPN services that get high praise from all over the web and IPVanish is certainly one of them. While other services like NordVPN, ExpressVPN and others may have more features or better speeds in other countries, we have determined that IPVanish is the best for the specific task of torrenting in Singapore.
For one thing, IPVanish is actually a little bit cheaper than many of its competitors. Normally a one year subscription costs $6.49 a month, but they have a new sale where you can purchase two years for only $3.74 per month. This comes out to only 90 dollars for 24 months of use. The seven day money back guarantee is just a cherry on top of a sweet cake.
Another great thing about IPVanish is that it has many servers in many countries. It has over 1000 server locations in 60 countries. Most importantly is that they have 18 different servers in Singapore, making it an ideal choice for residents of this country. This means that your best chances of getting sky high upload and download speeds for torrenting lies with a subscription to IPVanish.
IPVanish also allows up to five simultaneous connections, more than the average VPN provides. Whether you have family or roommates, or if you have a laptop and
Included in the package is a great feature called a ‘kill switch’ that more and more people are demanding from their VPNs. In the off chance that your VPN loses connection, your IP address would become vulnerable, meaning it will be visible to your internet service provider or your government. This is a much bigger problem when dealing with torrents rather than with regular internet browsing.
Luckily, IPVanish has one included with their software so you can shut down your internet automatically if you
Closing Remarks
The bottom line is that Singapore is very much a high risk and high reward location when it comes to internet downloads. With the right connection and the right VPN, you can breeze through massive torrent queues like they’re nothing. IPVanish is a remarkable choice that will offer you great protection and incredible upload and download rates that even Japan or the United States would be jealous of.
VPNs and torrents go together like chocolate and peanut butter, so there is no reason not to get into one if you’re already into the other. Hopefully this article has taught you about the benefits you’ll get if you have both working together.