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What the hell is OpenCandy?

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kartal:
I just have started seeing this stuff in installers. I know what they are up to personally. If you read their site they claim not to be adware spyware but snooping on people`s choices is a form of attack on privacy in my book.

What do you think?

Since Google is not your friend here is the link to OpenCandy

http://www.opencandy.com/

app103:
Recommendations are made to users during the installation process. Utilizing the install process creates a user-friendly experience and offers optimal engagement for making a software recommendation. The user is presented with a screen that describes the recommendation, at which time they may choose to install the recommended software.
--- End quote ---

That makes it adware.

We then provide analytics back to the creators, so they can see how their software and recommendations are performing. This way they can better understand how to build and recommend great applications.
--- End quote ---

That makes it spyware.

We've also provided our technology as a platform to a handful of software creators who are utilizing an offer screen during the install process as an advertising unit. Some creators are already monetizing their distribution by offering apps like browser toolbars, so we're helping them improve their user experience and optimize the effectiveness of their offers.
--- End quote ---

That makes it your average commercial adware that we are all already familiar with.

The difference is the sales pitch to developers. Some might just be tricked into seeing it as different, harmless and beneficial. It's not the typical "bundle our nasty crap with your software and make money" pitch. They offer to advertise your stuff in other people's software, instead. (of course they do get to the mentioning of the browser toolbars later on, though.)

mouser:
If these "recommendations" or "ads" are only shown during installation, and are clearly optional, then i probably wouldn't call it spyware or adware.
it's definitely a gray area.. but if the program you install doesn't show ads then we are just talking about an installer issue -- and for me the really important thing in such a case is that the user be told clearly that the optional things to install are really optional, and not be checked by default.

i still wouldnt use it in my software, but i also wouldnt consider it evil.

app103:
If the installer is showing ads and collecting information about the users of your software it is both adware and spyware, no matter how you slice it.

If it is offering toolbars it's the same crap we have always seen...no different.

For me, personally, it's not a gray area and it's abusive. There is no difference between showing an ad for some other product by some other developer in the installer of my software, no matter how much I might even like that software myself, and popping up an ad for Viagra on a user's screen during the install process.

An ad is an ad...plain & simple.

Plus OpenCandy is a commercial enterprise backed by venture capitalists that seeks to make money from you doing this to your software, most likely in the toolbars they will be offering to your users.

I don't like it when I am constantly having a Yahoo toolbar offer shoved in my face when installing or upgrading things, and I am sure I am not alone. This OpenCandy crap just seeks to make it happen even more often than it already does, and make a buck off of other people's hard work.

Instead of just big companies like Sun, Opera, and the like making deals with Yahoo, we are going to see predator middle man companies like OpenCandy doing it, without developing any software of their own to push it. They want to use your work to make it easier and more profitable for them to get a chunk of the toolbar cash pie.

The only thing sweet about this candy is the sales pitch to naive developers that might just fall for it.

kartal:
Lets be careful about the choice of words for the naming "Open"+"Candy".  They are making it like this stuff is all open and sweet.  app103 is right on the track. These guys are very sneaky.

The reason I brought it up is that I was testing Miro and they seemed to integrate OC into Miro. So I went to bug list and pretty much complained about it. And the developers responses varied but I think they will remove it at some point. From my understanding is that not all developers understand the side effects of these stuff on the users.

In the past I got hit by toolbars and spywares, no not because I clicked on" please god please install ask.com" button. They install it anyways either you click on the option  or not, your choice is irrelevant.

One the of the case for me was Pdfcreator which was stunning surprise to me. Since then I am deadly careful.

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