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The Pando Pandemic: Why You Might Already Be Infected

Does your internet feel tired?  Run down?  Does it pop out of parties?  Is it unpoopular?  Well, you probably have Pando Media Booster to blame for your poor internet performance as of late.  But what exactly is Pando Media Booster?

Pando Media Booster [PMB] is a stealth P2P program many games (mostly F2P) install.  It will run on start-up under Pando.exe or PMB.exe. It uploads without prompt from your computer and does not show on tray or task manager.  It WILL whore out your internet bandwidth and capacity – anywhere from 10% to 70% of your current speed may be occupied.  This is a method for companies to shove bandwidth bills to the consumer.

Current known list of games:

And these are the ones that the company admits to. There will be more.

Fixes:
1. Uninstall from control panel:  This is the easiest, simplest solution.
It will re-install itself once you run an update from games that utilize it.
If you don’t play those games much, this is your solution.

2. Remove it from start-up
Type msconfig in Start Menu -> run.
Remove PMB.exe or Pando.exe from startup list.
The Pando will run again once an updater is started, but at least this will reduce 24/7 whoring.

3. Internalize with hosts file
Find output address (Either ip or address) of Pando, this will depend on what game you play and may not be available to you.  Open hosts file (Not hosts.txt, just hosts) at :  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29 [1]
Edit with notepad and add line :127.0.0.1 WhateverAddressWas
This will prevent Pando from sending packets out. It will still occupy some CPU, but won’t whore as much bandwidth.

Fight the power gentlemen. Do not let the companies use your internet for their benefit. Check SpeedTest.net [2] before and after if you so wish.  Imagine, there are hundreds of thousands of uneducated players with this bull leaching off them. You are free now, but the companies will abuse this ignorance with full force when they can.  I’m not sympathetic for those who don’t even check their computer now and then, but I am worried where this will lead.

If anyone else is aware of any other games that use this invasive software, let us know so we can add it to our wall of shame here.