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Pando Download Manager
DRandom
Member Posts: 35
Just abit of a friendly warning.
Trialling Lotro: Seige of Mirkwood from their website gave me an unexpected surprise that was not welcome whatsoever. Installing the game means you also install a program called Pando Download Manager.
Seems nice and cosy, nothing to worry about.
On the contrary in just over a day it downloaded 3gb of data unknown to me before an hour ago. It slows down your computer aswell as your connection, streaming/downloading becomes near impossible and there is no option as to whether you want to install it or not when you install Lotro. After uninstalling my PC seems to run just fine, my connection speed is back to what it is supposed to be and I don't have to toil on the end of Tech support call centers.
I consider it nothing more than malware.
So just a little heads up for any one considering Lotro.
Comments
Hmm, why would LOTRO include a download manager in their client?
Seems odd, you are sure you didn't get it elsewhere?
My browser (Opera) have a good download manager built in BTW, I thought lose ones died out years ago, or at least I havn't seen one in over 5 years.
The OP is correct. To play LotRO, you have to install Pando. I wasn't too happy about it either. Fortunately, I didn't have the performance issues as he did or I would have uninstalled it immediately also.
LotRO does indeed use Pando Media Booster, so does DDO.
It wouldn't be so bad, except they DO NOT tell you that after you are finished downloading, Pando continues in the background sucking up your bandwidth to "seed" the other people, and there is no way to shut Pando down other than uninstalling it.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Hence the reason I uninstalled both those F2P mmos off my PCs. I don't need unwanted software doing things I never agreed to. I remember looking through my task manager to see this running, then I tracked it down to DDO. Pity really, all they needed to do was inform me of their intent with a simple user agreement and they would have kept a customer. Oh well, leaves more time for EQ2-X, Vindictus and Borderlands.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I sent Pando Networks a lovely little complaint detailing what had happened when their software was installed.
I also told them that I consider their software nothing more than malware and that I hope that their future software is not so invase and malicious.
Codemasters/Turbine will not be having my custom because of this.
Uninstalling the games won't remove Pando.
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If a dev only gives me the option of Pando.
I won't be playing that game. Plain and simple.
No but running ccleaner will.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
This is correct, you'll need to find Pando in your program files and uninstall it specifically. The control panel uninstaller works for this.
You don't need to uninstall the games.
Edit: And CCleaner won't uninstall a program only leftover bits. You have to unistall Pando to get rid of it, then CCleaner to remove any bits.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I just uninstalled it from the Programs and Features option in the control panel.
Is it worth running CC cleaner to get rid of anything else it may of left behind?
I always run CCLeaner after uninstalling anything, just to keep everything clean.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Point.
Meh, I guess its about time I did a full cleanup, defrag.
CCleaner also has the option to run uninstall through it's program, along with registry sweeps and start up list....been doing it for years.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
It does have a download manager, which will consume your upload, but you can uninstall it.
^ correct, had no idea about it though and therefore the program was installed without my consent and therefore, malware.
Hmm actually theres a thing that says by clicking next or something you are accepting that program, you just missed it.
Heh, you're right. Never use it, so forgot about it totally, I only use the cleaner/registry sweep.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Bittorrent does it as well. It's not Malware, since it's not doing anything to harm your computer. It works just like any other Peer 2 Peer application, Kazaa, Limewire, Bittorrent...and a million others. Most of them offer a way to shut it down, but there's several that work in the same way. If you open up task manager 99% chance you'll see a process called DNA running, that's a peer to peer application that just about every computer has.
Actually, under the definition of "malware", Pando fits. You cannot turn it off without uninstalling.
Bittorrent and all other normal "peer to peer" clients have an "Exit" option.
Edit: And that dna.exe in task manager is a bittorent process, not standard on all computers.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
When you're done downloading your game, install it and delete Pando Media Booster. You don't need the booster to run the game, even install it. All it is is a way to get the files, nothing more.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
My question to that though Illius would be about less tech savvy users who wouldn't necessarily know what to look for.
God only knows alot of younger users wouldn't unless computers were a hobby of theirs.The program should not have to run in the back ground afterwards as it is detrimental.
but will you still be able to update the game without it?
i saw i had that thing running i thought it was from that F2P Vindictus, here i must have had it even longer than i thought from when i tried LOTRO a few weeks before. explains why my computer seemed to be running slower. the stupid thing was always running even when i never played either game that day. it runs as soon as you start the computer not just after you run the game.
Yes, you use the game updater for updates, so Pando is not needed after downloading the game client.
And just think how people with bandwidth caps feel when they find out Pando used all their bandwidth while continually uploading in the background.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
How often are these threads going to pop up over and over...and over and over... and over and over?
Seriously, how could somebody post on this without first doing a Google on the matter?
Turbine stopped using their Turbine Download Manager... they use the one from Pando.
It is not malware. You can uninstall it.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
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