OpenCandy is an

adware Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the ...

module and a

potentially unwanted program A potentially unwanted program (PUP) or potentially unwanted application (PUA) is software that a user may perceive as unwanted or unnecessary. It is used as a subjective tagging criterion by security and parental control products. Such software ma ...

classified as

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...

by many anti-virus vendors. They flag OpenCandy due to its undesirable side-effects. It is designed to run during installation of other desired

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

. Produced by

SweetLabs SweetLabs is a software distribution company. Company overview Based in San Diego and Seattle, SweetLabs has raised $21.5 million in venture capital from Bessemer Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures ...

, it consists of a

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

incorporated in a

Windows Installer Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. ...

. When a user installs an application that has bundled the OpenCandy library, an option appears to install software it recommends based on a scan of the user's system and

geolocation Geopositioning, also known as geotracking, geolocalization, geolocating, geolocation, or geoposition fixing, is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate s ...

. Both the option and offers it generates are selected by default and will be installed unless the user unchecks them before continuing with the installation. OpenCandy's various undesirable side-effects include changing the user's homepage, desktop background or search provider, and inserting unwanted toolbars, plug-ins and extension add-ons in the browser. It also collects and transmits various information about the user and their Web usage without notification or consent.

Development

The software was originally developed for the DivX installation, by CEO Darrius Thompson. When installing DivX, the user was prompted to optionally install the

Yahoo! Toolbar Yahoo! Toolbar is a browser plugin. It is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome browsers. Yahoo! Toolbar has been around for more than 10 years and has evolved since its inception. Originally aimed at being a bookmark and pop ...

. 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.

Windows components

Components of the program may have differing but similar names based on version.

Files dropped

*OCComSDK.dll *OCSetupHlp.dll *Fusion.dll

Processes

*spidentifier.exe * rundll32.exe

DNS and HTTP queries

*tracking.opencandy.com.s3.amazonaws.com *media.opencandy.com *cdn.opencandy.com *cdn.putono5.com *tracking.opencandy.com *api.opencandy.com *www.arcadefrontier.com

Software known to have included OpenCandy

AC3Filter AC3Filter is a free DirectShow filter for real time audio decoding and processing. It can decode the audio formats AC3, DTS, and MPEG Multichannel. Features Features include: * Playback of video with DTS and AC3 audio tracks, * Up-mix of any ...

Auslogics Disk Defrag Auslogics Disk Defrag is a freemium software application for Microsoft Windows intended to defragment files and folders on a hard drive, consolidate free space and optimize file placement using different criteria. It is available in both a free ...

CamStudio CamStudio is an open-source screencasting program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. The software renders videos in an AVI format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF files. CamStudio is w ...

(since version 2.7 r316) *

CDBurnerXP CDBurnerXP is an optical disc authoring utility for Windows 2000 and later, written mostly in Visual Basic .NET as of version 4, released in September 2007. It has international language support. The software is available to download in both 32 ...

(depending on version; alternate download without OpenCandy available; confirmed 2017-03-01) *

FileZilla FileZilla is a free and open-source, cross-platform FTP application, consisting of FileZilla Client and FileZilla Server. Clients are available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Both server and client support FTP and FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS), while ...

(present in 2013) *

Format Factory __NOTOC__ FormatFactory is an ad-supported freeware multimedia converter that can convert video, audio, and picture files. It is also capable of ripping DVDs and CDs to other file formats, as well as creating .iso images. It can also join multipl ...

Foxit Reader Foxit PDF Reader (formerly Foxit Reader) is a multilingual freemium PDF (Portable Document Format) tool that can create, view, edit, digitally sign, and print PDF files. Foxit Reader is developed by Fuzhou, China-based Foxit Software. Early ver ...

(6.1.4 – 6.2.1) *

FreeFileSync FreeFileSync is a free and open-source program used for file synchronization. It is available on Windows, Linux and macOS. The project is backed by donations. Donors get access to a Donation Edition that contains a few additional features such a ...

FrostWire FrostWire is a free and 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 sup ...

GOM Player GOM Player is a media player for Windows, developed by GOM & Company. With more than 100 million downloads, it is also known as the most used player in South Korea. Its main features include the ability to play some broken media files and find ...

ImgBurn ImgBurn is an optical disc authoring program that allows the recording of many types of CD, DVD and Blu-ray images to recordable media (.cue files are supported as of version 2.4.0.0). Starting with version 2.0.0.0, ImgBurn can also burn files a ...

(since version 2.5.8.0, though only on the version of the installer distributed directly from imgburn.com; the version distributed from the official mirror sites is adware-free) *

mIRC mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for Windows, created in 1995. It is a fully functional chat utility and its integrated scripting language makes it extensible and versatile. mIRC has been described as "one of the most popular IRC cl ...

* MP3 Rocket *

MyPhoneExplorer MyPhoneExplorer is a proprietary freeware desktop application allowing management of Android mobile phones. It is developed in Austria, originally for the Sony Ericsson mobile phone. Features MyPhoneExplorer can connect to a phone using a USB cabl ...

(dropped March 2015) *

Orbit Downloader Orbit Downloader is a discontinued download manager for Microsoft Windows. Launched in 2006, its developers abandoned it in 2009. In 2013, Orbit Downloader was classified as malware by antivirus software after ESET discovered a botnet in the ap ...

(confirmed 2015-10-24) *

PDFCreator PDFCreator is an application for converting documents into Portable Document Format (PDF) format on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It works by creating a virtual printer that prints to PDF files, and thereby allows practically any applicati ...

PhotoScape PhotoScape is a graphics editing program, developed by MOOII Tech, South Korea, Korea. The basic concept of PhotoScape is 'easy and fun', allowing users to easily edit photographs taken from their digital cameras or even mobile phones. PhotoScape ...

* PrimoPDF *

Sigil A sigil () is a type of symbol used in magic. The term has usually referred to a pictorial signature of a deity or spirit. In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic, sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner ...

(dropped in version 0.5.0 and later) * Trillian (dropped 5 May 2011) *

μTorrent μTorrent, or uTorrent (see pronunciation) is a proprietary adware BitTorrent client owned and developed by Rainberry, Inc. with over 150 million users. It is the most widely used BitTorrent client outside China; globally only behind Xunlei. ...

WinSCP WinSCP (''Windows Secure Copy'') is a free and open-source SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), WebDAV, Amazon S3, and secure copy protocol (SCP) client for Microsoft Windows. Its main function is secure file transfer ...

(through August 2012) * FL Studio Installer

Workarounds

There is a workaround to bypass OpenCandy by running some installers with a /NOCANDY parameter on the

command line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

, which is up to the installer to support or not.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Opencandy Windows adware