The other day I thought I´d popp into Lotro and see whats going on since its f2p so I downloaded the gameclient. After I was done I noticed that I had unusual high latency when playing other games online.

Turns out that with the Lotro gameclient came "Pando mediabooster" - a program that allows Turbine to use my computer and my bandwith to distribute Lotro gameclient to others for free. I knew Turbine is cashhungry but this is ridicoulus and I wonder if its actually legal. After approaching Turbine about payment for this service I unknowingly provided for and , not so surprisingly, got no answer I decided to unistall both Pando and Lotro.

Perhaps its common knowledge but I´ve never heard that some gaming-companies did this so I thought I´d give a heads-up about it for others to know.

Originally posted by XXXXL

The other day I thought I´d popp into Lotro and see whats going on since its f2p so I downloaded the gameclient. After I was done I noticed that I had unusual high latency when playing other games online.

Turns out that with the Lotro gameclient came "Pando mediabooster" - a program that allows Turbine to use my computer and my bandwith to distribute Lotro gameclient to others for free. I knew Turbine is cashhungry but this is ridicoulus and I wonder if its actually legal. After approaching Turbine about payment for this service I unknowingly provided for and , not so surprisingly, got no answer I decided to unistall both Pando and Lotro.

Perhaps its common knowledge but I´ve never heard that some gaming-companies did this so I thought I´d give a heads-up about it for others to know.

Lots of games use Pando Media Booster, LoTRO, LoL, Asda and several others. It's a fairly common program for MMO clients to use. WoW even uses a bit torrent style peer to peer patching system, I do not know if it's PMB however.

Originally posted by XXXXL

The other day I thought I´d popp into Lotro and see whats going on since its f2p so I downloaded the gameclient. After I was done I noticed that I had unusual high latency when playing other games online.

Turns out that with the Lotro gameclient came "Pando mediabooster" - a program that allows Turbine to use my computer and my bandwith to distribute Lotro gameclient to others for free. I knew Turbine is cashhungry but this is ridicoulus and I wonder if its actually legal. After approaching Turbine about payment for this service I unknowingly provided for and , not so surprisingly, got no answer I decided to unistall both Pando and Lotro.

Perhaps its common knowledge but I´ve never heard that some gaming-companies did this so I thought I´d give a heads-up about it for others to know.

Many games use Pando.  Uninstall pando when you're done installing the game.  That's all it takes.

You weren't paying attention when you installed it becaue you have to click through Pando to even get the game installed. So you did agree to install Pando.  Not paying attention isn't an excuse for not knowing so you didn't unwittingly supply a service to them.

"After approaching Turbine about payment for this service I unknowingly provided" - that was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

A lot of F2P games use Pando, which is sad b/c the program is practically a virus. Luckily, several F2P companies also provide torrent downloads as an alternative. AFAIK Turbine doesn't however.

Edit: And yes, it says very clearly when installing the game that PMB will also be installed. However, this was not always the case.

http://www.pandonetworks.com/products/pando-media-booster

"Pando Media Booster accelerates the delivery of large files. It intelligently delivers small pieces of the media file from multiple sources including CDN servers as well as other users who consume the same content ("Peer Cloud")."

Originally posted by Rednecksith
A lot of F2P games use Pando, which is sad b/c the program is practically a virus. Luckily, several F2P companies also provide torrent downloads as an alternative. AFAIK Turbine doesn't however.

The hilarity ensues.  I don't like it either, but a virus?  srlsly?  It's a p2p torrent service.  Although the riaa and mpaa would definitely agree with you that p2p file sharing is a virus.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Rednecksith
A lot of F2P games use Pando, which is sad b/c the program is practically a virus. Luckily, several F2P companies also provide torrent downloads as an alternative. AFAIK Turbine doesn't however.

The hilarity ensues.  I don't like it either, but a virus?  srlsly?  It's a p2p torrent service.  Although the riaa and mpaa would definitely agree with you that p2p file sharing is a virus.

Yeah I noticed the "virus" reference too, I laughed.

Seriously.

It tells you its installing it.

You can uninstall it.

It only servers the files up as a torrent as long as you actually keep teh download. (If you delete the install folder, Pando has nothing to serve and is dormant.)

Its harly the end of the world.

Actually I would rather use Pando fo r download than some custom torrent in the installer, as Pando is a known system with a small control panel that lest you throttle bandwith use.

I fail to see the issue. REALLY. DDO only use Pando for the large initial download. After that you can delete it.

Originally posted by hfztt

Seriously.

It tells you its installing it.

You can uninstall it.

It only servers the files up as a torrent as long as you actually keep teh download. (If you delete the install folder, Pando has nothing to serve and is dormant.)

Its harly the end of the world.

Actually I would rather use Pando fo r download than some custom torrent in the installer, as Pando is a known system with a small control panel that lest you throttle bandwith use.

I fail to see the issue. REALLY. DDO only use Pando for the large initial download. After that you can delete it.

True, you can unistall it and still play the game and receive updates.

Originally posted by MMOGamer71

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by Rednecksith
A lot of F2P games use Pando, which is sad b/c the program is practically a virus. Luckily, several F2P companies also provide torrent downloads as an alternative. AFAIK Turbine doesn't however.

The hilarity ensues.  I don't like it either, but a virus?  srlsly?  It's a p2p torrent service.  Although the riaa and mpaa would definitely agree with you that p2p file sharing is a virus.

Yeah I noticed the "virus" reference too, I laughed.

Well, it may not be intended to be a virus but the fact of the matter is that it is a huge resource hog and is pretty much the equivilant to malware on lower end systems. Rednecksith is actually correct in his statement.

If you know that its just to uninstall Pando after the game-client is downloaded then its np as some of you say, but the problem was that I didn´t know about it and Turbine never mentioned it when I downloaded the client. And yes, I do think that allowing Turbine to use some 80% of my bandwith without my understanding is a big issue.

And I also don´t understand why some of you feel the need to belittle me and try to make me look like an idiot when I simply try to adress something concerning Lotro that I think is a problem. There might be more "dumbasses" like myself out there.

This is my last reply in this matter since I got to say what I wanted. Now make fun of my ignorance and stupidity as much as ya want hehe.

Originally posted by XXXXL

If you know that its just to uninstall Pando after the game-client is downloaded then its np as some of you say, but the problem was that I didn´t know about it and Turbine never mentioned it when I downloaded the client. And yes, I do think that allowing Turbine to use some 80% of my bandwith without my understanding is a big issue.

And I also don´t understand why some of you feel the need to belittle me and try to make me look like an idiot when I simply try to adress something concerning Lotro that I think is a problem. There might be more "dumbasses" like myself out there.

This is my last reply in this matter since I got to say what I wanted. Now make fun of my ignorance and stupidity as much as ya want hehe.

See the edit in post #5 of this thread.

I dunno. Calling it a virus is stretch to me. A virus gets onto a computer via deception through links, pictures, and other things. Viruses aren't particularly designed to give a warning and check a permission box to install onto your computer.

One thing that you can do, that others have mentioned, is to uninstall Pando and be done with it, rather than finger point and call it names on a forum because you don't like the software.

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Originally posted by Rednecksith
A lot of F2P games use Pando, which is sad b/c the program is practically a virus. Luckily, several F2P companies also provide torrent downloads as an alternative. AFAIK Turbine doesn't however.

Edit: And yes, it says very clearly when installing the game that PMB will also be installed. However, this was not always the case.

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Soooo... since it asks you for permission to install, is it still a "virus" then?

Originally posted by Cacaphony

 

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Originally posted by Rednecksith
A lot of F2P games use Pando, which is sad b/c the program is practically a virus. Luckily, several F2P companies also provide torrent downloads as an alternative. AFAIK Turbine doesn't however.

 

Edit: And yes, it says very clearly when installing the game that PMB will also be installed. However, this was not always the case.

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Soooo... since it asks you for permission to install, is it still a "virus" then?

Then it provides a link to mycleanpc.com...............................

Originally posted by XXXXL

If you know that its just to uninstall Pando after the game-client is downloaded then its np as some of you say, but the problem was that I didn´t know about it and Turbine never mentioned it when I downloaded the client. And yes, I do think that allowing Turbine to use some 80% of my bandwith without my understanding is a big issue.

But yousee: THEY DID TELL YOU!

Look at the download page: http://www.lotro.com/en/game/download

There is a link to an FAQ: http://support.turbine.com/ics/support/kbanswer.asp?deptID=24001&task=knowledge&questionID=2797

In that you can read about the use of Pando and it even links to a specific Pando FAQ: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?290438-Pando-Media-Booster-FAQ-and-info-Updated-9-17-2010

And what do you know in that FAQ it states:

• Once the download has completed successfully and the game is installed, you can either disable** or uninstall "Pando Media Booster" (via the "Add or Remove Programs" (XP) or "Uninstall a Program" (Vista) control panel option). The downloaded game install files can be stored for later use if needed in a reinstallation.

Edit: I messed up and used the DDO version. LotRO hides it a bit more, but not much...