Configure qBittorrent to block transfers on VPN disconnect

Martin Brinkmann
Mar 23, 2016
Internet
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27

If you are using a virtual private network while downloading torrents, then you may be interested in an option that qBittorrent makes available that blocks transfers automatically if the VPN connection drops.

VPNs are useful to improve your privacy on the Internet but like any other connection, they may disconnect from time to time.

While some services come with kill switches that prevent data transfers until the VPN connection has been established again, it is not the case for all and usually only available if you use a program provided by the VPN to connect to it but not if you use the operating system's build-in functionality to do so.

qBittorrent and VPNs

qbittorrent kill connection

One feature of qBittorrent, a popular cross-platform torrent client, is such a kill switch. Basically, what it does, is monitor a specific network connection to block all file transfers (up and down) if the network connection changes.

This can be useful to block torrent traffic if the connection to the VPN terminates, but also for other things like making sure that torrents are only downloaded or uploaded when the device is connected to a specific network adapter (say only when it is connected to Ethernet and not Wifi).

Here is what you need to do to configure the feature:

First thing you need to do is find out how the network connection / adapter that you want qBittorrent to use exclusively is named.

If you know that already, skip the following step.

  1. Use Windows-Pause to open the Windows Control Panel.
  2. Select Control Panel Home on the screen that opens.
  3. Select Network and Internet from the selection menu.
  4. Click on Network and Sharing Center on the next page.
  5. Select change adapter settings.
  6. There you find listed all network connections. Identify the one used by the VPN.

Once you know the name of the network connection, you may set up qBittorrent to use it exclusively.

  1. Open the qBittorrent program on your system.
  2. Select Tools > Options, or use the shortcut Ctrl-O to do the same.
  3. Switch to the advanced listing.
  4. Scroll down until you find "network interface" listed as a setting.
  5. Click on "any interface", and switch the value to the network connection you have identified previously.
  6. Click apply and ok.
  7. Restart qBittorrent.

It may be a good idea to test the setting to make sure it works correctly. What you can do is use a different connection, e.g. no vPN connection and start the program to see if traffic is blocked. Or, and that may be even better, start qBittorrent connected to the exclusive network connection you have configured, and terminate that connection after a moment to see if the BitTorrent client will block all traffic. (Thanks Don)

 

Summary
Configure qBittorrent to block transfers on VPN disconnect
Article Name
Configure qBittorrent to block transfers on VPN disconnect
Description
Find out how to configure qBittorrent to use a network connection exclusively, for instance to make sure that it will always use a VPN connection for torrenting.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
    Reply

    Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
      Reply

      Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.

    2. Leonidas Burton said on September 4, 2023 at 4:51 am
      Reply

      I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
      http://www.google.com/saved

  2. VioletMoon said on August 16, 2023 at 5:26 pm
    Reply

    @Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!

  3. Karl said on August 17, 2023 at 10:36 pm
    Reply

    @Martin

    The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
    https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/

    Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.

  4. Anonymous said on August 25, 2023 at 11:44 am
    Reply

    Omg a badge!!!
    Some tangible reward lmao.

    It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.

  5. Scroogled said on August 25, 2023 at 10:57 pm
    Reply

    With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.

    1. lollmaoeven said on August 27, 2023 at 6:24 am
      Reply

      This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)

  6. El Duderino said on August 25, 2023 at 11:14 pm
    Reply

    Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.

    And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.

  7. John G. said on August 26, 2023 at 1:29 am
    Reply

    First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[

  8. Kalmly said on August 26, 2023 at 4:42 pm
    Reply

    Yes. Please. Fix the comments.

  9. Kim Schmidt said on September 3, 2023 at 3:42 pm
    Reply

    With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.

    Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.

    The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.

    If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.

    And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.

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