Is Kickass Torrents, and other torrent sites like it, completely dead in Australia? Content copyright holders would like you to think so. After several back-and-forth court battles, the Australian government has officially ordered a range of torrent sites blocked. Although Kickass Torrents is not specifically named in the most recent decisions, content holders have been battling to get Kickass Torrents and its mirror sites blocked in Australia, with some marginal success. Australia’s ISPs are no fan of this move, as it’s both costly and troublesome for them. This has left many users wondering how to unblock Kickass Torrents in Australia, or at least how to avoid triggering any ISP warnings while using the site.
The truth is that Kickass Torrents is still accessible in Australia if you take the right methods. In particular, this means using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, to gain access to the site and all of its mirrors, without worrying about ISP monitoring. Using a VPN is indeed the best and most secure method you have to access to Kickass Torrents in Australia
What is VPN technology?
Think of a VPN like your own, private tunnel between your house and anywhere you want to go. Even if you live in a busy neighborhood with nosey neighbors, as soon as you open your door and leave the house, you enter your private tunnel. Your neighbors might know you left the house, but they’ll never know where you’re going. And they certainly don’t know what’s coming into your house or out of it, as they can’t see any activity inside your personal tunnel.
A Virtual Private Network works in such a way, connecting you through a virtual tunnel to a private server. That connection is heavily encrypted, often with high-level, military-grade encryption standards, so that nobody can snoop on your browsing activity. Furthermore, the VPN will change your IP address when you get to the new server, so you’ll be able to access blocked content. Most VPN services will use servers located all over the world, so you can actually access content, not just from your own country, but from any country where a server is located.
That means you can connect to a server in the US, where Kickass Torrents is not blocked, and enjoy easy access to the content without having to worry about receiving any notifications from your ISP, or even having to worry that your ISP knows you’re accessing Kickass Torrents at all.
You’ll have a lot of VPN services to choose from, but there are good ones and bad ones out there. A good one will make your anonymity a priority, employing several additional technology features and practices that ensure you’ll have full privacy online. That includes things like strict no-log policies, data leak protections, kill switches for if the VPN service goes down for any reason, and what’s known as “obfuscation”, a method that actually hides the fact that you’re even connected to a VPN at all.
Which VPN should I use in Australia?
We’ve put several popular VPN services to the test. Our number one recommendation for how to unblock Kickass Torrents in Australia is to use IPVanish. IPVanish meets several criteria we believe are fundamentally important to torrenting and internet privacy:
- A large number of server locations outside of Australia
- Servers and server locations in countries where Kickass Torrents is not blocked
- Servers with high bandwidth and no data caps
- A VPN service that utilizes obfuscation, high-level encryption and leak protection
- A VPN service that maintains a strict no-log policy
Our independent testing shows that IPVanish fully meets all of this criteria. IPvanish maintains hundreds of servers outside of Australia, and many inside of Australia as well. Most torrent blocking current occurs in European countries, the Middle East and East Asia. North American countries and most Central and South American countries have no such bans in place. As IPVanish maintains over 200 servers in North America alone, this makes the service one of your best options.
Furthermore, we’ve found that IPVanish has some of the best bandwidth of any VPN service around. It’s not uncommon for VPN users to experience speed loss. This is common, as data has to pass through encryption and decryption as it passes through the VPN. However, with IPVanish you’ll experience little of this speed decrease. All servers maintain high speeds with unlimited bandwidth and, most importantly for anyone using Kickass Torrents, no data caps.
IPVanish also includes all of the things we believe makes a VPN perfect for anyone wishing to unblock Kickass Torrents in Australia. That includes the no-log policy, military-grade AES-256 encryption, an obfuscation method known as “Scramble”, DNS and IPv6 leak protection and a useful kill switch. You can also utilize IPVanish on multiple devices at once at no additional cost.
As a benefit to our readers, we’ve partnered with IPVanish to provide a 25% discount on their services. You can sign up for a subscription and receive this discount on any of their plans.
How to unblock Kickass Torrents in Australia using IPVanish
You can download the IPVanish software prior to creating an account. However, once you have the software downloaded and your account creating, you can begin immediately using Kickass Torrents quickly and easily. In fact, signing up, installing and connecting to a VPN for the first time takes under 10 minutes.
Here’s an easy-to-follow guide that will get you started using our recommended VPN, IPVanish.
Step 1: Pick your desired service plan
Click here to access the sign-up page. You’ll know it’s the right place if you see the “Special Offer” banner at the top, otherwise, you will not get to enjoy the discount.
Step 2: Download the software
After completing the signup, you will get a confirmation email with your password. If you haven’t already, now is a good to download the software. This process should only take a few seconds.
Once you have the program fully installed, IPVanish will give you a prompt to restart your operating system. This is highly recommended to avoid any software conflicts or operation errors.
Step 3: Login to your application
With the login information you received, you can no access your account through the downloaded application. The program will not automatically connect you to a VPN the first time you sign in, although there is a setting that allows you to do so.
The program will provide you with a quick tutorial on how to access the basic settings and get started.
Step 4: Pick a country where Kickass Torrents is unblocked
On the right side of the application, you’ll see where you can pick a server location or a specific city. As stated earlier, your best options are North American countries or cities.
After connecting, you’ll see data displayed in the center with red and green graph lines, as well as connection information in a box on the bottom left. You’ll also see the “Off” button on the top right will now be green and say “On”. You can toggle the on-off function by just click on that button.
Step 5: Turn on your “Scramble” feature
You can find the useful “Scramble” feature in the settings. This will mask the fact that you’re connected to a VPN. Easily turn this on by clicking on the gear symbol on the right, clicking on the “Connection” section, and checking the box for “Obfuscate OpenVPN traffic.”
You now have access to your VPN service! If you prefer to have IPVanish automatically connect, you can do so in the settings as well. Simply head over to “General” under settings and click on “Start IPVanish when Windows starts,” as well as “Connect to the last connected server.”
Sam Cook • Author
Sam Cook is a full-time content strategist by day, a part-time freelance content writer since 2015. In another life, he was a high school English teacher for nearly a decade. Based in sunny New Orleans, he writes long-form educational content on technology, including Insurtech, Fintech, HRtech, and content streaming.
Desiree Wu • Editor
Desiree is a full-time Honours Business Administration student at Ivey Business School at Western University. She also served as an Editorial Intern at Flixed. Desiree is based in London, Ontario.