PunkBuster

PunkBuster is a terrible little program made by the fine fellows at Even Balance Inc. that has caused many a gamer to rage. They say its main purpose is to find cheaters in multiplayer games and kick/ban them out of the game. This is obviously a lie, because if the program even suspects you of "cheating" it will kick or ban you and may even blacklist your CD-Key. In other words, you will never be able to play on any servers that use PunkBuster again because of the blacklist.

Reasons for the Ban

Instead of "busting the punks" that cheat, it will ban you for any of these reasons:

You suck at the game (PunkBuster will think you're assisting the opposing team by sucking)
You're too good at the game
You lag just a bit more than other people
Your game crashed
PunkBuster crashed
Vulgar language
Preset server rules that fuck up all the time
You connect for too long
You are testing a new config and it finds a forbidden command
Trying to play the fucking game.
Trying to connect to a server.
You own a PC.

Setup / Patcher

When people choose, when installing their game, to not install PunkBuster, they find out that they cannot play on many of the game's multiplayer servers. So to fix this, PunkBuster's solution is to download their setup/patcher program. This program is installed right on to your computer and "updates" the game that you are having trouble with. Unfortunately, this does not work and only leaves the player raged.

Website

	“	Welcome to Even Balance, Inc., home of PunkBuster™, the original Anti-Cheat system for online multiplayer games. We daily battle the selfish little punks who want to ruin your favorite online games and the hack-writers who supply them with cheats. Our goal is to keep the playing field as even as possible so that PunkBuster-enabled games are played the way they were meant to be played.	„
	—Even Balance's description on the front page of their website.

Support Tickets

"Just Google It".

Even Balance has a crappy support ticket system. A gamer typically writes a long and detailed essay about the problem to which they just respond "reinstall PB again" / "just google it" and close the ticket. In other words, Even Balance does not give a shit about you or any other people that play games. They just care about having their product used by the man and gaming companies.

Hackers Fight Back

PunkBuster had been attacked at times over the years. One major attack was in 2007 where a group of people DDOSed the PunkBuster servers for great justice which suspended their fascist agenda in order to stop the "cheaters" in games. This brought their servers down for around a week or so causing havoc amongst the PunkBuster "community."

In late 2008, another attack was brought down upon PunkBuster's servers. A shitty online petition was made in order to grab Even Balance's attention. Too bad online petitions are fucking stupid and never work.

“	On 9/12/08 a server that had modifications made to it with the intent to cripple the PunkBuster system, submitted data which was added to the MBI. This exploit appears to be in the Even Balance (PunkBuster) side of things. (Streaming Game Admins can see more info in the private section) PBBans has removed data that was submitted fraudulently, but the vulnerability this exploit and it's public knowledge leaves the ability to continue this exploit a real threat. No streaming server is safe.	„
—No shit.

Uninstalling

Here is how to uninstall this bitch.

1. Download Even Balance's pbsvc.exe here
2. Run it and start the uninstall process.
3. Uninstall the program.
4. Restart.

For some, this is not enough to get PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe off of their systems. If this is a problem, do this:
(WARNING: This may mess up your computer if not done properly. We are not responsible for the damage that you have done to your system. Got it, bud?)

1. Go to C:\Windows\system32 and check for a punkbuster folder there. Delete it.
2. Then check your prefetch folder and look for a punkbuster folder there. Delete it there.

Sources:

Rage Quotes

	“	So I installed BF2142, and updated the shittiest software known to mankind, PunkBuster, and everything worked fine (What a miracle). But now I get kicked after a few seconds, and a message pops up that says "Punkbuster". That's it, no error message. I've tried to re-install it and update it again, but that didn't help. Seriously, why would any developer use this ustable, useless piece of shit software? It's fucking horrible, and I've had nothing but problems with it. Anyways, any solutions to this problem, or am I fucked, just because Dice decided to use this software that was programmed by retarded monkeys?	„
	—Gamer on GameTrailers Forums

	“	Punkbuster has always been a fail program. It's supposed to detect cheaters which it don't, it kick people for no reason. The hackers that make these cheats code their software better then punkbuster does. Maybe the hacker designers are trying too tell us something, or EA.[...] [...]PB has always failed and always will. They have done nothing for me as well as anyone else.	„
	—This man speaks the truth.

	“	[...]punkbuster is horrible software. it's buggy, a pain in the ass to update, and is constantly causing people trouble. in my experience i've seen it boot 1 idiot using an aimbot for every 50 people it needlessly hassles.	„
	—Damn straight it's horrible.

	“	FUCK PUNKBUSTER So I installed BF2142, and updated the shittiest software known to mankind, PunkBuster, and everything worked fine (What a miracle). But now I get kicked after a few seconds, and a message pops up that says "Punkbuster". That's it, no error message. I've tried to re-install it and update it again, but that didn't help. Seriously, why would any developer use this ustable, useless piece of shit software? It's fucking horrible, and I've had nothing but problems with it. Anyways, any solutions to this problem, or am I fucked, just because Dice decided to use this software that was programmed by retarded monkeys? FUCK PUNKBUSTER	„
	—{{{11}}}