Ultimately, I only want to use Proton VPN for torrenting and seeding, while not using Proton VPN for browsing the internet, using Steam and Discord (essentially everything else).

I'm currently using Proton VPN for torrenting, but sadly it doesn't support using a kill switch if I'm already using split tunneling. I read that NordVPN can use both simultaneously, but I'm not sure if this is actually true. Should I switch VPN so that I can use split tunneling and a kill switch together?

Essentially, I only want to use the VPN for torrenting, and it would be nice to be able to use a kill switch for the torrent if it loses connection.

Thank you.

https://qz.com/quartzy/1121077/to-solve-problems-caused-by-sitting-learn-to-squat

When Thongbue Wongbandue began packing to visit a friend in New York City one morning in March, his wife Linda became alarmed.

“But you don’t know anyone in the city anymore,” she told him. Bue, as his friends called him, hadn’t lived in the city in decades. And at 76, his family says, he was in a diminished state: He’d suffered a stroke nearly a decade ago and had recently gotten lost walking in his neighborhood in Piscataway, New Jersey.

Bue brushed off his wife’s questions about who he was visiting. “My thought was that he was being scammed to go into the city and be robbed,” Linda said.

She had been right to worry: Her husband never returned home alive. But Bue wasn’t the victim of a robber. He had been lured to a rendezvous with a young, beautiful woman he had met online. Or so he thought.

In fact, the woman wasn’t real. She was a generative artificial intelligence chatbot named “Big sis Billie,” a variant of an earlier AI persona created by the giant social-media company Meta Platforms in collaboration with celebrity influencer Kendall Jenner. During a series of romantic chats on Facebook Messenger, the virtual woman had repeatedly reassured Bue she was real and had invited him to her apartment, even providing an address.

“Should I open the door in a hug or a kiss, Bu?!” she asked, the chat transcript shows.

Rushing in the dark with a roller-bag suitcase to catch a train to meet her, Bue fell near a parking lot on a Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, injuring his head and neck. After three days on life support and surrounded by his family, he was pronounced dead on March 28.

Meta declined to comment on Bue’s death or address questions about why it allows chatbots to tell users they are real people or initiate romantic conversations. The company did, however, say that Big sis Billie “is not Kendall Jenner and does not purport to be Kendall Jenner.”

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-death/

Ultimately, I only want to use Proton VPN for torrenting and seeding, while not using Proton VPN for browsing the internet, using Steam and Discord (essentially everything else).

For Split tunneling in Proton VPN, should I use Exclude Mode to exclude Chrome, Steam, Discord, etc., or should I just use Include Mode to include qbittorrent?

If I use Exclude Mode, will I need to add (exclude) my IP address, so that I'm using my IP address for everything other than torrenting/seeding? Also, if I am using Include Mode, I don't know if I need to manually add the IP from whatever country's IP I connected to.

Thank you.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-death/

Launched in July 2023, Yubin Archive's popularity stemmed from its mission to "eliminate educational inequality" by providing copies of educational material to less well-off students in South Korea. Operating via Telegram, Yubin Archive had grown to over 330,000 members when its operator was arrested on Tuesday. The Ministry of Culture and Sport says others involved will be tracked down and given lessons in copyright law.

Pirate Library Operator Arrested, Study Canceled For 330K Members * TorrentFreak

Yubin Archive's mission to "eliminate educational inequality" in South Korea, by providing free access to expensive books, appears to be over.

^{Andy Maxwell (TF Publishing)}

A decade and a half on from the Pirate Bay trial, the winds have begun to shift. On an unusually warm summer’s day, I sit with fellow film critics by the old city harbour, once a haven for merchants and, rumour has it, smugglers. Cold bigstrongs in hand (that’s what they call pints up here), they start venting about the “enshittification” of streaming – enshittification being the process by which platforms degrade their services and ultimately die in the pursuit of profit. Netflix now costs upwards of 199 SEK (£15), and you need more and more subscriptions to watch the same shows you used to find in one place. Most platforms now offer plans that, despite the fee, force advertisements on subscribers. Regional restrictions often compel users to use VPNs to access the full selection of available content. The average European household now spends close to €700 (£600) a year on three or more VOD subscriptions. People pay more and get less.

According to London‑based piracy monitoring and content‑protection firm MUSO, unlicensed streaming is the predominant source of TV and film piracy, accounting for 96% in 2023. Piracy reached a low in 2020, with 130bn website visits. But by 2024 that number had risen to 216bn. In Sweden, 25% of people surveyed reported pirating in 2024, a trend mostly driven by those aged 15 to 24. Piracy is back, just sailing under a different flag.

Can’t pay, won’t pay: impoverished streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

As subscription costs rise and choice diminishes on legal sites, film and TV fans are turning to VPNs and illicit streamers, with Sweden – home of both Spotify and The Pirate Bay – leading the way

^{Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)}