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OpenCandy
WinSCP uses OpenCandy advertising module only in its installation program. WinSCP application itself does not contain OpenCandy and does not show any ads.
OpenCandy is advertising application. It is similar to Google AdSense, except it displays advertisements in installation program instead on a website. These advertisements promote another software packages. The advertisements are selected by providers of software being installed (in case of WinSCP it means WinSCP developers). When user installing a software (WinSCP) chooses to install promoted package, revenue is generated and shared between OpenCandy and software providers (WinSCP developers).
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Is it Adware?
Some may consider OpenCandy an adware. In principle it is. It is a way to recover software development costs using advertisement.
On the other hand, OpenCandy does not demonstrate the negative characteristics commonly associated with adware:
- Advertisement is only shown as a one step of software installation. Once software (WinSCP) is installed, you do not receive any more advertisements.
- No unwanted software is installed. User has to explicitly choose to install promoted software to actually receive it.
- No private information is collected. Installation program collects only information necessary to choose relevant advertisement, such as geo-location, operating system and language. Note that this is about the same amount of information, any web page you visit receives from your web browser. Collected data is sent to
opencandy.winscp.net. It also downloads advertisement image frommedia.opencandy.com(though it does not send any information there). See more details about information being collected.
For details see OpenCandy privacy policy.
Can I avoid OpenCandy?
Yes you can. Use /NOCANDY parameter when starting installation program or download version of installation program without OpenCandy. And if you use portable executable you will avoid installation program with OpenCandy as well.
What does an OpenCandy recommendation look like?
Below it an example of OpenCandy recommendation screen in WinSCP installation program. Use the Install … button (or similar) to choose to install the recommended application. Use the Do not install … button (or similar) to continue installing WinSCP without installing the recommended application.
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Adware Alerts
Since release 4.3.3 the WinSCP installer with OpenCandy should not generate any adware alerts. Previous versions of OpenCandy module included in WinSCP installer were triggered by Microsoft Windows Defender as adware. See corresponding entry on Adware:Win32/OpenCandy on Microsoft security site. This problem was resolved with Microsoft and the latest version of OpenCandy module is no longer considered adware.