I apologize in advance because I’m sure these probably feel like some stupid and duplicate questions. However, my attempts to find answers to these online have been met with answers that are sparse, oftentimes old (8+ years), and conflicting. I am looking into getting a seedbox. I decided to go with Whatbox because they seem to consistently have the best reputation. But I have some questions regarding the safety of doing this.

  • Whatbox (and a few other seedbox companies) offer seedboxes in the US. How can they do that without being immediately shut down? Do they have some kind of restrictions that could cause problems with using a US-hosted seedbox? I’ve read that there is much faster torrent connection with EU-hosted boxes, but is that worth the tradeoff for direct download speeds? (According to Whatbox’s network test, I’d be at 20 MB/s for USA and 10 MB/s for Netherlands.)

  • How safe is paying via your real payment details? Pretty much every seedbox seems to take crypto, which sounds a lot safer but tacks on processing fees and inconvenience. (Also I am morally opposed to crypto so I would prefer not to use it.) This is the question that really seemed to have conflicting answers when I looked.

  • How safe is connecting via your real IP, or should you still connect to the seedbox via VPN? I know that you won’t get dinged by your ISP, I mean in case of something like the host being taken down and their records being looked through.

  • QualifiedKitten@kbin.social
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ve been using Whatbox for many years without any issues. I’m based in the US and have it set up to autocharge the same card that I use for everything else. I do not use a VPN or anything else to access Whatbox.

    I have received plenty of DMCA notices from Whatbox over the years, and they just require you to delete the offending content within 24 hours or your account will be locked until you do.

    In fact, I vaguely recall them increasing my storage allowance a few years ago without raising my rate, so that was pretty cool.

    • Tadpole7085@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Cool to hear! Do you actually need to delete the content in order to comply, or simply stop seeding?

      • QualifiedKitten@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        I’ve never actually tested that out. If it’s content I want long term, I simply download it to my local storage before deleting from Whatbox.

        What I’ve found works best for me when using public trackers for new content is to set up a max seeding ratio and whatever relevant *arrs. Doing it that way means that I’ve usually been able to download the content and stop seeding before the swarm is discovered/monitored by those sending the notices.