If no one has their ports open then no one can connect to each other to seed/download. They can’t seed to you if they can’t connect to you and you can’t seed to them if they can’t download from one. Atleast 1 side needs open ports.

thank you for the reply, i’ve been port forwarding for a while now but i wasn’t so sure on what it actually does.

Binding and port forwarding are two different things and serve two different purposes.

Binding = telling your torrent client app (qbittorrent) to only send and receive traffic through a specific network interface on your computer (the network interface for your VPN connection), and never through any other network interfaces that may be available. The benefit of this, if configured correctly, is to ensure that torrent traffic doesn't mistakenly bypass your VPN connection in a way that would reveal your activity to the world, copyright holders, and your ISP. Binding is a *must* if you are torrenting from a jurisdiction with copyright enforcement or other risks attached to torrenting activity.

Port forwarding = telling your VPN provider to accept incoming network traffic aimed a specific port number and to forward that traffic to your computer. (You'd also need to tell qbittorrent to use that port for sending and receiving torrent content.) The benefit of this, if configured correctly, is to enable other people who are downloading/sharing the same torrent to connect to you, particularly if they don't have an open port for torrent traffic. As others have stated, at least one party to a torrent connection has to have an open port.

Port forwarding is not a *must* but it is beneficial — it will increase your success rate with torrents that have very few seeds/peers, it may increase your speed with some torrents, and it will also enable you to be a better torrent "citizen" in terms of strengthening the ecosystem for each torrent and increasing the total amount of traffic that is able to be exchanged.

The binding of qbittorrent is to a specific network interface, not a port. If that interface is your VPN, qbittorrent will only be able to communicate when that interface is up. This prevents qbittorrent from continuing to operate if the VPN goes down.

Ports are not interfaces or IP addresses. Think of ports as exterior doors at a specific IP address (in this case your VPN provider's server address). By default they are closed and locked. But when you open one, you allow incoming traffic through that port and additionally you direct where (which hallway if you will) that traffic is allowed to proceed inside your local network. Typically this is done by specifying a local IP address as the destination for the incoming traffic. In qbittorrent there is a setting (not the bind address) where you specify the 'listening' port. In order for the inbound traffic to be seen by qbittorrent this listening port has to match the port that your VPN provider forwarded to you. One caveat here, some providers only port forward for a limited time and/or they change the port number occasionally. When this happens you have to update the listening port in qbittorrent.

So having qbittorrent bound (not 'binded') to a specific network interface does not do anything for your port forwarding.

I was just asking for a suggestion for the private tracker I use. My ISP provider does not allow port release, I have already changed ISP provider but here in Brazil they make their own rules! I can't increase my rating on the tracker because I can't distribute it, precisely because no one connects to my client. If you use a private tracker, it is practically mandatory that you have open ports on your router for the torrent client, otherwise it will not be able to distribute.

I totally recommend you port forward, I’ve made a post about this just a while ago and you should see the benefits!

I used SOCKS5 for torrenting for the better part of a decade. No port forwarding. For common torrents speeds were many times faster. But there were always less popular torrents that I couldn’t nab. I finally switched to a proper port forwarding VPN and now I can torrent just about anything. The trade off being my speeds are 10x slower but I think it’s worth it.

Port forward doesn’t have anything to do with your isp if you use a VPN that implements it. I moved from Nord to AirVPN to get port forwarding and the result was astounding. Way faster downloads and lots of seeding.

I tried to setup port forwarding the other day. Screwed my router and qbit up so bad nothing would download lol. Had to reset both back to defaults. I need a day off work to sit down and mess with it.

If anyone has any words of encouragement I'd like to hear them. I've watched videos etc I'm just stupid.

Netgear router. Proton vpn. Wireguard.

You don't port forward from your router. You get a forwarded port assigned by your VPN provider and that is what you set in qbit as the 'listening' port.