Tribler has two ways to download, and its proxy setting belongs to only one of them. The source of Tribler 8.4.3 applies your proxy to a download only when it has zero hops: if hops == 0: self.set_proxy_settings(ltsession, *self.get_libtorrent_proxy_settings()). Downloads with one to three hops are routed through Tribler's own local SOCKS5 endpoints into its onion network, the multi-hop design the project is known for. So the question "is Tribler using my proxy?" has a different right answer depending on which kind of download you started. We did not run Tribler in our lab; what follows is from its source, and the check at the end is yours to run.
Two modes, side by side
| Zero hops | One to three hops | |
|---|---|---|
| Route | Your proxy, then the swarm | Tribler's local SOCKS5 endpoints, then its onion network |
| Your proxy used | Yes, including peer connections | No |
| Speed | The proxy's and the swarm's | Lower; Tribler's interface labels it "Low speed / High anonymity" |
| Encryption | None from the proxy | Tribler's own design; "Encrypted anonymous seeding using proxies" is its UI string |
| Billed on our meter | Every proxied byte | Nothing, because our proxy is not in the path |
Zero-hop downloads are a libtorrent session with "proxy_peer_connections": True, which is what the source sets. The engine's general behaviour then applies: trackers and peers through the proxy, no incoming connections, and DHT, uTP and UDP trackers relayed over SOCKS5 only when the server allows UDP ASSOCIATE.
The limits on our side
Treat our SOCKS5 as TCP only. We do not advertise UDP relay, so DHT, UDP trackers and uTP will not run through it; on a zero-hop download the engine stops them rather than sending them around the proxy. An HTTP proxy carries no UDP. A proxy adds no encryption, and anything sent outside it uses your own IP. Residential traffic is billed per GB, as is traffic past a shared IP's included gigabyte, and seeding moves the payload through a second time; the terms describe the count. Dedicated IPs have no bandwidth cap.
Tribler is a research client, and its hops are a privacy design; a proxy is not. If the concern is copyright enforcement, the wiki of qBittorrent, a client on the same engine, recommends a VPN. Tribler suits research data and other lawful material; using our proxies for unauthorised sharing is not allowed under the allowed-use policy.
Set the proxy for zero-hop downloads
- Open Settings > Connection and find Torrent proxy settings.
- Choose Socks5 with authentication if your order uses a username and password, or Socks5 with an IP allowlist.
- Fill in Server, Port (the SOCKS5 port from your order), Username and Password.
- Start a download with zero hops. This is the only kind the setting affects.
Check which mode a download is using
Run one download of each kind, one at a time, and list Tribler's connections while each is active. On Linux, by process ID:
PID=1234
ss -Htnp state established | grep "pid=$PID," | awk '{print $4}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head
- Zero hops: the top line should be your proxy's address and port, carrying the peer connections. Addresses that are neither the proxy nor loopback are connections made around it.
- With hops: expect no connections to your proxy at all. The download's traffic goes to Tribler's local SOCKS5 endpoints on your own machine instead, and our proxy plays no part.
Windows users can run Get-NetTCPConnection -OwningProcess PID -State Established for the same list. Note the exit address through your proxy with the curl line on our proxy checker, so you know what the swarm should see on a zero-hop download.
What a dataset costs at zero hops
Academic Torrents lists "over 419.44TB of research data". Take a 50 GB dataset at zero hops: at least 50 GB in, and another 50 GB out if you seed to a ratio of 1.0, which is the courtesy that keeps research swarms alive. On residential that is $150.00 for the download alone and $265.00 with the seeding, at checkout. A datacenter IP, $1.90/IP (dedicated) a month, has no bandwidth cap, though port speed and fair use apply. Peer-to-peer traffic for lawful content is fine on residential and on dedicated ISP and datacenter IPs, which carry no traffic meter. The cost calculator works out which is cheaper at your volume.
Tribler sits next to Deluge and qBittorrent in our torrent client comparison, all three on the same engine with three different proxy behaviours.