I was looking through the megathread and saw this real-debrid thing. I have heard this name some times so I read what it does but wasn't able to understand it. If someone could explain it to me I would appreciate it.

Also, it caught my attention that "it's a good way to prevent your IP from ever hitting the torrent's swarm, which is the main cause of receiving copyright infringement letters". Does this mean it's an alternative to a VPN when torrenting? Is it like a seedboxes or something? Are there any free alternatives?