Torrenting on private trackers is much safer than on public sites because the staff vets members and moderates content. Still, torrent trackers aren’t immune to hackers or malware so you need a VPN to protect your data when torrenting. File downloading and P2P sharing is legal in most places too, as long you don’t torrent copyrighted or illegal material. You can check out this regularly updated map of global torrenting laws to keep up with the rules where you are.