I use a ip link checker - to verify the vpn is working like it should. They're a dime a dozen but this one is the one that showed up first on my search.
basically, you download a unique-to-you magnet torrent, and then the torrent / website will tell you what ip is being shown to the outside world. if you leave it in your client you can see at a glance what ip you are actually using in your client.
On top of the other comments, your private tracker will have a tutorial/rulebook on exactly how new content should be labelled. It's worth checking that out before you start experimenting with encoding quality options.
if there was an extention that could skip the sponsor segments inside the videos themselves I’d use it in a heartbeat.
sponsorblock does that. it's crowd sourced, so it doesn't always work with the small channel newest videos, but it's very good at what it does considering.