OpenCandy is a company based in San Diego that produces an advertising software module consisting of a Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 library that can be incorporated in a Windows installer

Windows Installer

The Windows Installer is a software component used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software on modern Microsoft Windows systems...

. When a user installs an application that has the OpenCandy library, there is an option to install additional software that it recommends (based on a scan of the user's system and geolocation).

The software was originally developed for the DivX

DivX

DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...

 installation, by CEO Darrius Thompson. When installing DivX, the user was prompted to optionally install the Yahoo! Toolbar

Yahoo! Toolbar

Yahoo! Toolbar is a toolbar that installs on the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers, within the context of internet access functions. It allows access to several functions, including Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Mail. It also contains built-in algorithms to prevent pop-ups and spyware...

. Divx received $15.7 million during the first nine months of 2008 from Yahoo and other software developers, after 250 million downloads.

Chester Ng, the former DivX business development director, is chief business officer and Mark Chweh, former DivX engineering director, is chief technology officer.

OpenCandy has attracted criticism because of privacy concerns. Past versions of OpenCandy were considered adware

Adware

Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer. These advertisements can be in the form of a pop-up. They may also be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during...

 by Microsoft Security Essentials as they "may send user-specific information ... without obtaining adequate user consent".. OpenCandy have claimed that this is because another company used OpenCandy without the formal warning in their EULA.

Applications known to use OpenCandy

• aMSN
• Any Video Converter
  Any Video Converter
  Any Video Converter is a free video converter for windows and costs for Mac. The software can convert almost all major video files including AVI, DivX, FLV, RM, and VOB into another video format...
  
  
• ApexDC++
• CCleaner
  CCleaner
  CCleaner , developed by Piriform is a Utility program used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer...
  
   (the 'slim version' without Yahoo Toolbar can be found under "Builds page" section)
• CDBurnerXP (the 'minimal' installer under "More download options" is adfree)
• Cheat Engine
  Cheat Engine
  Cheat Engine, commonly abbreviated as CE, is an open source memory scanner/hex editor/debugger created by Eric Heijnen for the Windows operating system. Cheat Engine is mostly used for cheating in computer games, and is sometimes modified and recompiled to evade detection. This program resembles ,...
  
  
• CNET TechTracker
• Connectify
  Connectify
  Connectify is a Windows software application developed by that creates a software-only hotspot on a Windows PC with Wi-Fi device...
  
  
• CrystalDiskInfo (3.9.1-en Installer Edition verified -> use adfree Portable Edition instead)
• CutePDF
  CutePDF
  CutePDF is a proprietary Portable Document Format converter/editor for Microsoft Windows developed by Acro Software.The developers also produce CutePDF Writer , a plug-in application which acts as a "printer subsystem" to enable Windows applications that have print capability to output documents in...
  
  
• DarkWave Studio
• Dexpot
• doubleTwist
  DoubleTwist
  doubleTwist Corporation is a digital media company founded by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen. It is backed by Index Ventures and Northzone Ventures....
  
  
• DVDStyler
  DVDStyler
  DVD Styler is a Cross-platform DVD authoring tool with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux versions, using wxWidgets. It allows menu creation, buttons, and DVD previews. It is free software under the license GNU GPL.- See also :* DVD authoring* DVD Flick...
  
   (1.8.4.2 verified)
• Driver Sweeper (2.9 verified)
• ExtractNow
• Frostwire
  FrostWire
  FrostWire is a free, open source BitTorrent client first released in September 2004, as a fork of LimeWire. It was initially very similar to LimeWire in appearance and functionality, but over time developers added more features, including BitTorrent support. In version 5, Gnutella support was...
  
  
• FL Studio
  FL Studio
  FL Studio is a digital audio workstation developed by the Belgian company Image-Line. FL Studio features a graphical user interface based on a pattern-based music sequencer...
  
  
• Free Music Zilla 2.0.4 according to terms of use
• IE7Pro
  IE7Pro
  IE7Pro is an add-on for Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, and 9 that aims to enhance the feature set provided by the browser. IE7Pro adds features such as tab enhancement, an ad blocker and flash blocker, mouse gestures, inline search, privacy enhancements, online bookmark service, Greasemonkey-like user...
  
  
• Image Tuner
• IZArc
  IZArc
  IZArc is a proprietary file archiver for Microsoft Windows developed by Bulgarian programmer Ivan Zahariev. The program is freeware and closed source. In addition to the most commonly used archive formats, like zip, rar, gzip, tar.gz, bzip2, and 7z, IZArc handles a large number of less common formats...
  
  
• Kantaris
• MediaCoder
  MediaCoder
  MediaCoder is a transcoding program for Microsoft Windows. It has been developed by Stanley Huang since 2005.MediaCoder uses various open source audio and video codecs, among several proprietary codecs and tools to transcode different audio/video formats and has many extra features...
  
  
• MediaInfo
  MediaInfo
  MediaInfo is a free, Open-source program that displays technical information about media files, as well as tag information for many audio and video files. It is used in many programs such as XMedia Recode, MediaCoder, eMule, K-Lite Codec Pack, Media Player Classic Homecinema and can be easily...
  
  
• MiPony
• Miro
• MyPhoneExplorer
  MyPhoneExplorer
  MyPhoneExplorer is a proprietary freeware desktop application allowing management of Sony Ericsson and Android mobile phones. It is developed in Austria but has been translated into many languages, including English. It is available from multiple download sites and has been downloaded over 1.5...
  
  
• Office 2010 Trial Extender
• Orbit Downloader
  Orbit Downloader
  -External links:* * at Download.com* at Softonic.com...
  
  
• PeaZip
  PeaZip
  PeaZip is a file manager and file archiver for Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux. It supports its native PEA archive format and other mainstream formats, with special focus on handling open formats...
  
  
• Power Plan Assistant for Windows® 7 (read the EULA)
• PrimoPDF
  PrimoPDF
  PrimoPDF is a freeware program that creates a PDF file from Microsoft Windows documents. It works as a virtual printer. It does not present the user with advertisements. PrimoPDF is developed by the same company that develops the commercial Nitro PDF software....
  
  
• PSP Video 9
• RedKawa
• Soldat
• Startup Manager
• StepMania
• Super Simple Photo Resizer
• Veoh
  Veoh
  Veoh is an Internet television company based in San Diego, California. It allows users to find and watch major studio content, independent productions and user-generated material. The company is a subsidiary of Israeli start-up Qlipso....
  
   Web Player
• Sigli
  Sigil (application)
  Sigil is an open-source editor for EPUB e-books developed by Strahinja Marković in 2009 and maintained by John Schember since 2011.As a cross-platform application, it is distributed for the Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms under the GNU GPL license...
  
  
• Soft32 Updater
• SPlayer
• SUPER
  SUPER (software)
  SUPER is a closed-source freeware front-end for open-source software video players and encoders provided by the FFmpeg, MEncoder, MPlayer, x264, ffmpeg2theora, musepack, Monkey's Audio, True Audio, WavPack, libavcodec, and the Theora/Vorbis RealProducer plugIn projects...
  
  
• TechTracker
• Trillian
  Trillian
  Trillian may refer to: * Trillian , a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* Trillian , an instant messaging client...
  
  
• True Burner
• Unlocker
• Videora
• Vistaglazz
• Winamp
  Winamp
  Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...
  
  
• WinSCP
  WinSCP
  WinSCP is a free and open source SFTP, SCP, and FTP client for Microsoft Windows. Its main function is secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager and file synchronization functionality...
  
  
• Super Mario Bros X (Level Editor)
• Xfire
  Xfire
  Xfire is a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers, that also serves as a game server browser and has various other features. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ultimate Arena based in Menlo Park, California...
  
  

External links

• http://winscp.net/eng/docs/opencandy - WinSCP FAQ on avoiding OpenCandy
• http://cdburnerxp.se/en/download - CDBurnerXP page with link to OpenCandy-free download (select "More download options" to see)