Feed up with Open Candy / Bloatware!

A lot of the software developers do not offer a paid version. Camstudio for instance does not offer a paid version of their product. I don't use Camstudio often, but when I do it is a real big help when showing developers adverse behavior of their applications. I'm just not going to use software that comes bundled with other software anymore unless it's something I absolutely have to have. There's some things that's hard to find a replacement for.

 

Chris, have you tried Tixati? I replaced Utorrent with Tixati after I learned about Tixati. It contains no bundled software at all. Tixati developer was the developer of WinMx back in the day. -http://www.tixati.com/-

 

Not yet, but I'll give it a go. Thanks for the tip

 

Just found this, hope it's not a repost.

-http://dottech.org/123619/how-to-block-opencandy-windows-xp-vista-7-8-guide-

 

Thank you for the link! Users could also use Peerblock the same way to block the opencandy domains. Peerblock just recently released version 1.2 so development seems to be active again.

 

Adware:Win32/OpenCandy

Installation

When running an installer with an OpenCandy component, an OpenCandy DLL file named
OCSetupHlp.dll is extracted into the %TEMP% folder. The DLL determines which, if any, of
the developer's selected offers to display.

Symptoms

The following could indicate that you have this program on your PC:

While running an installation program using the OpenCandy component, you might receive an
offer to install a recommended program. This offer may indicate it is "Powered by
OpenCandy".
Your firewall or other network monitoring program may indicate traffic to various opencandy.com servers.


http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/threat/encyclopedia/entry.aspx?Name=Adware:Win32/OpenCandy

 

I will never ever install anything coming from Sourceforge. I have got infected on a W7 fresh installation with some adware which i have got when installing FreeFileSync. It took hours to get rid of it, with multiple scans with Malwarebytes and AdwCleaner. Now I am clean, but an inactive icon in the tray.
Go to Hell Sourceforge.

 

I am going to do it tonight, I post the outcome. Thanks for your advice.

 

Cache cleaned and it's gone. Thanks again.

 

Do you have shares in OpenCandy or something?

Read some EULAs before demanding what is pretty obvious.

 

No.

I really would like to see evidence of such an EULA for anything installed via OpenCandy. Anything I've seen offered via OpenCandy has seemed to be perfectly safe to me. Not anything I'd ever want to use myself, but for what I can tell, safe software that come with uninstallers, so they can be easily removed.

To make it clear I don't like OpenCandy, and never install any 3rd party software offered by OpenCandy or any other installer, unless I do so mistakenly. But, don't think software should be classed as malicious in any way, just because it comes bundled via another programs installer. If we were to take things that far, Google's Chrome could also be considered a bad program because, for example it becomes bundled with Avast.

 

I don't know of any vendor that classifies OpenCandy or similar as malicious, malware etc etc.. but only as a PUA (Potentially Unwanted Application)

But if you know of any vendor that classifies some of them wrongly then one could send an FP report and say that they should reclassify them.

FWIW....

Best Practices: Guidelines to Consider in the Evaluation of Potentially Unwanted Technologies

http://www.antispywarecoalition.org/documents/BestPracticesFinal.htm

And another one....

Badware guidelines for software applications

https://www.stopbadware.org/software-applications-guidelines

 

You are right, AVs don't classify it as malicious. I was referring to RJK3 comment which said I was wrong about bundled software not collecting user data.

 

I would suggest for example if you have imgburn installer... load it up to virustotal
and see what the AV's classify opencandy as.

 

Ah I understand