Saturday, November 22, 2008

OpenCandy - Get ready to see Ads during software installs.

Wherever you go, advertisements pop up everywhere. While watching TV, reading magazines and while surfing internet. And now be ready to see advertisements during software installations as well.

opencandy.gifOpenCandy, the company who have come up with technology to put the modules in the installer package, which recommends softwares which the developer feels that it would be great fit for the user. Software creators can choose any number of applications to recommend to their users. When a user installs their software, it queries the OpenCandy servers. OpenCandy technology evaluates the available offers and targets the best offer for that user. Because the entire process is dynamic, creators can alter their recommendations at anytime – without the need for any re-building of installers or bundling.

Example of installation screen

The GIMP installer is launched

installer-screen1.png

The user is offered a recommendation, Inkscape

installer-screen2.png

My opinion is that as an end user I get recommendation about other software which I would like to try and from Developer's perspective I am monetizing the the installer screen and earn good bucks if anybody purchase the software I have recommended.

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Posted by Techcorrespondent at 11:21 PM

1 comments:

  1. OpenCandy is adware and spyware. See Wikipedia for more info on spyware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware Personally I dont want any info from my machine sent back to a company I dont know anything about. How do I know they aren't building some sort of a database of who has installed or turned down certain pieces of software?

    Next why cant the recommendations not be hardcoded into the installer instead? Granted they won't be personalized to the user but they will be a lot more SECURE. I think the only thing OpenCandy will succeed in doing is turn away a lot of people from otherwise great open source software. Also why isn't there a version out for Linux either? Considering a lot of people use Linux as well.

    The Internet Unibomber

    PS
    I admit Gator/GAIN was really bad and personally I hated them especially when I had to clean up a machine that got hit by it, but AT LEAST they WARNED you that the installer you were using came bundled with it. OpenCandy installers ONLY put it in the EULA, if that. MOST people don't read EULAS especially from open source software.
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