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OpenCandy

Some older versions of WinSCP used OpenCandy advertising module in its installation program.

The module shows at maximum one ad and only during the installation. 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).

Is it Adware?
Can I avoid OpenCandy?
What does an OpenCandy recommendation look like?
Adware Alerts

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 from media.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.

Adware Alerts

Occasionaly some versions of WinSCP setup are triggered as an adware by some Antivirus application. When this happens we promply file false-possitive dispute with the Antivirus application vendor. The problem then usually gets resolved withing few days with virus definition update.

Currently we are having this issue with McAfee VirusScan.