OpenCandy

[Jojoyee]

Originally Posted by 26Dolphins

... One could argue that by choosing an app that comes bundled with it, you've already opted in... By the time I'll see the offer, OpenCandy has already done its thing on my machine, so it's already a few steps too far to care if the offer is opt-in or opt-out.

Even if it's stated that the installer comes with OpenCandy, the end user should still have the choice to decide if he/ she wants it to scan their system before it does it and he/ she should have the choice to decline it.
Being able to run the installer using the switch /NOCANDY, is not a straight forward option - one has to know about it to use it and a number of people still won't know how to, not to mention that it may stop working in the near future.

Very good comments 26Dolphins.

Seriously, OpenCandy should consider that. It should give an option to opt out whether the user would like to accept OpenCandy to recommend any software, not till later the user sees the recommendation. Ask "Do you like some drinks?" first before you ask "What drinks do you like?" That way is probably more approachable and not seen to be too intrusive. If the answer to the first question is no, then don't need to ask further.

This will make OpenCandy to be acceptable to more users and software developers do not need to provide a separate installer without OpenCandy.

[garth]

Originally Posted by Super Simple

There needs to be a balance in there somewhere. I think OC has an excellent balance. It's far in the clear for any privacy concerns. (I've posted information on that and what information is communicated in my blog post Opening Up OpenCandy.)

OpenCandy has been the topic of much discussion around here for a while now, and a good deal more is known about it now than was two or three months ago when we first started discussing it in the closed forums. My initial view was that OC was both adware and spyware, and that view hasn't really changed much. It has evolved though, and i no longer rate OC in the same way i would rate a virus or other forms of malware. That said, i don't want it on my computer. The one thing that would change my mind is if there was, somewhere in the install process of whatever software, an option to have, or not have, my computer scanned by OC. It's that simple. "Do you wish to have your system scanned by OpenCandy so we might offer you software you might like....yes or no". It's the jackboots enforcement of OpenCandy i loathe so much, and until this situation changes (which it probably won't), no OC bundled apps on my machine thanks....i'll buy payware before i use OC bundled freeware. It bothers me also that OC may be luring the unwary noob or non techie computer user into installing the latest "one click system speedup/registry wrecker" or whatever: imo that's not good practice. Apparently these applications are recommended by the developer of whatever OC bundled app is being installed, but i wonder how many developers would allow a one click registry wrecker anywhere near their computers?

Thanks though Ryan for taking the time to put your point of view across and incidentally, i enjoyed the Slayer review on your blog

[Super Simple]

Originally Posted by 26Dolphins

Hi,

I've been following the discussion here (site & forum) from day one. I've also read through the lengthy thread over at the Donation Coder forum.

Hello 26Dolphins. Over in the Donation Coder forum I'm Renegade. Just so you know.

Originally Posted by 26Dolphins

To me, the issue with OpenCandy is that OpenCandy itself is not opt-in. Oone could argue that by choosing an app that comes bundled with it, you've already opted in, but it's not always that evident (there's the recent example of a game company that bundled their installers with OpenCandy with no sort of info on their site. People felt and were ambushed, so they strongly opposed, forcing the company to discontinue the use of OpenCandy).
By the time I'll see the offer, OpenCandy has already done its thing on my machine, so it's already a few steps too far to care if the offer is opt-in or opt-out.

WinSCP has done a good job of explaining things here:

http://winscp.net/eng/docs/opencandy

FL Studio has also tried to make things clear as well:

http://flstudio.image-line.com/documents/download.html
http://flstudio.image-line.com/power...opencandy.html

For my own software, I put some information in the FAQ:

http://www.supersimple.me/FAQ

I can understand why a developer wouldn't put any information about OpenCandy on a download page.

In my own preliminary investigations, I determined that it was perfectly harmless, and there was no threat and nothing insidious was going on. So I decided to use it. I figured I should mention it though on the Super Simple site, which I did.

To a developer looking at OpenCandy, there's nothing bad happening, and it's perfectly harmless, so why clutter up the site with distractions?

It's not an attempt to hide anything. It's simply that there's not much to talk about.

For example, why would I mention that I used some particular licensing system? It's not really very interesting, and if anyone is curious, they could probably figure it out anyways.

However, I could probably have done a better job than I did. It just never occured to me that it was worth mentioning any more than I already had in the FAQ. Compare the WinSCP and FL Studio pages to my small mention and you'll see what I mean.

Originally Posted by 26Dolphins

Even if it's stated that the installer comes with OpenCandy, the end user should still have the choice to decide if he/ she wants it to scan their system before it does it and he/ she should have the choice to decline it.
Being able to run the installer using the switch /NOCANDY, is not a straight forward option - one has to know about it to use it and a number of people still won't know how to, not to mention that it may stop working in the near future.

Since it's highly unlikely that any of my desired changes will happen any time soon (if ever), if an app doesn't have a portable version, I'll be looking for an alternative, even if it means to get more than one app to get sth done.
Reading the comments of others, I see I'm not the only one thinking this way.

Cheers

It's a delicate balance. Since nothing is installed when you decline an offer, the effort to bother with /NOCANDY is much more than simply clicking no. And with no personal information sent, I couldn't be bothered to drop down to the command line.

But here's a slightly different take on that.

To use the IZArc example from the original review...

The compression market is one of the most competitive out there. It's a very hard market. WinZip revenue, last I checked, was falling every year. I know a few people in the market, and they're certainly not getting rich from it.

I've worked in that market and that's how I know. I used to work for ESTsoft, the makers of ALZip.

From the IZArc site on the donations page:

I develop IZArc in my spare time but it takes a lot of it and supporting via emails or by web forum takes even more time. I do all this for nothing. Anyway domain registration and bandwidth cost money that I pay by myself. Your donations will go a long way in helping me improve IZArc and provide you with ever greater features for free.

Donations don't work. People simply don't donate. Yeah... I know... I'm sure there are a few people here who have donated. I have too. We're not the norm. There are some commercial software titles that I've purchased licenses for more than once because they are that valuable to me too. But in general, donations are a lost cause.

Now, he has some ads up there, and they probably make some money as well, but still... he has to pay for things himself. Servers cost money. They're not free. Everytime somebody downloads IZArc, that's money out of his pocket.

That was the background. This is the point...


Rather than looking for an alternative, demanding that he provide an installer without OpenCandy is effectively the same thing as telling the poor fellow that his work isn't worth the time it takes you to click "No thanks" in his installer, and that you're offended by his audacity to presume that he should to anything except offer his software for free on your terms.

You're sending a message that the time it takes you to click "No thanks" is far more valuable than the years of effort that he's put into IZArc.


While that may seem a bit harsh, it's never-the-less the message that a lot of users are sending to developers.

Now, that message may be unintentional, but if you'd put in years of work to create something like IZArc, how would you feel?

I feel sorry for the poor fellow. IZArc has been around for a long time, and a lot of people like it and use it. He's just trying to continue along. I don't know him personally, but I'm willing to bet that if you asked what his major motivation for IZArc was, he'd say that it was because he enjoys it.

Do developers need to be sensitive to the needs of users? Absolutely!

But it's a 2-way street.

[Super Simple]

Originally Posted by garth

OpenCandy has been the topic of much discussion around here for a while now, and a good deal more is known about it now than was two or three months ago when we first started discussing it in the closed forums. My initial view was that OC was both adware and spyware, and that view hasn't really changed much. It has evolved though, and i no longer rate OC in the same way i would rate a virus or other forms of malware. That said, i don't want it on my computer. The one thing that would change my mind is if there was, somewhere in the install process of whatever software, an option to have, or not have, my computer scanned by OC. It's that simple. "Do you wish to have your system scanned by OpenCandy so we might offer you software you might like....yes or no". It's the jackboots enforcement of OpenCandy i loathe so much, and until this situation changes (which it probably won't), no OC bundled apps on my machine thanks....i'll buy payware before i use OC bundled freeware. It bothers me also that OC may be luring the unwary noob or non techie computer user into installing the latest "one click system speedup/registry wrecker" or whatever: imo that's not good practice. Apparently these applications are recommended by the developer of whatever OC bundled app is being installed, but i wonder how many developers would allow a one click registry wrecker anywhere near their computers?

I went over some of the things you're talking about in the Donation Coder forums here:

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/i...4305#msg244305

The issue to watch is:

Originally Posted by garth

The one thing that would change my mind is if there was, somewhere in the install process of whatever software, an option to have, or not have, my computer scanned by OC. It's that simple. "Do you wish to have your system scanned by OpenCandy so we might offer you software you might like....yes or no".

It goes to the problem of multiple "opt-in/out" prompts, which is a PITA for the user, and a PITA for the developer.

Again, it boils down to trying to strike a balance.

Regarding scanning your computer, the "scan" is merely a boolean check against a validation code. DrApp posted in the original review what that was, which was nice because I wasn't exactly sure how it was working until then. For easy reference, here it is:

OpenCandy does indeed want to make sure that we don't recommend something that someone already has installed. However, OpenCandy does *NOT* scan your computer and catalog all the programs you have installed (a very common misconception for some reason). What the OpenCandy installer plug-in does do is use what we call "validation code" to determine whether a recommendation a developer has chosen is valid for a given computer. As an example, someone without Outlook installed wouldn't benefit from an Outlook plugin. So if a developer has chosen to recommend an Outlook plugin, an XML-based file of "validation code" is sent to the user's computer. The OpenCandy plug-in (running locally) checks the "validation code" to see if Outlook is installed and if so, the OpenCandy plug-in sends our server a binary "yes" in order for the graphics and messaging for the recommendation screen to be sent to the user's computer to be displayed during the publisher's installation process.

I posted some of the XML with the validation code in my "Opening Up OpenCandy" post.

I won't post the XML because it's going to look like gobbledy-gook to a lot of people, but it's readily available there.

Originally Posted by garth

Thanks though Ryan for taking the time to put your point of view across

There are lot more people using software, than they are writing software, so I hope that I've put across some kind of a balanced view from "the other side".

Originally Posted by garth

...and incidentally, i enjoyed the Slayer review on your blog

Thanks! It was great to finally get out and see them, though I had to go to 2 Slayer concerts to see them once! Hahahah~!

One thing I can definitely say with 110% certainty... It's hard as Hell to get a good picture when you're in the front row of a mosh pit/Slayer concert~! I took a lot of pictures, but only a few turned out half-decent.

I'm just starting to get into photography, and like to post some of the more interesting stuff (I posted "Reptile Porn" over at Donation Coder for a joke -- it's safe for work).

My Photo Resizer software (that includes OpenCandy) came out of getting into photography. My wife likes to upload pictures to Facebook a lot, and I originally wrote it for her. Other software was complicated for what she wanted to do. I found myself using it a lot instead of Photoshop, and decided to make it publicly available.

I actually write a lot of small utilities for my own use, and thought that a "Super Simple" web site would be an ideal way for me to publish those fast, easy to use programs without taking up too much time. (I put food on the table through other means. )

I have several other programs that I have yet to release there though. They're the same type of fast and easy programs with a dedicated purpose.

I chose OpenCandy because I wanted the site to support itself if possible, and after looking into OpenCandy, saw that it offers an excellent balance for that and for end users.

But it's certainly not going to make me rich. If it were to cover server costs, that would be nice.

[26Dolphins]

@Super Simple
I've read your reply to me a couple of times and still can't decide if you really don't get my point or if you chose to come across as if you don't get it.

Let me try to communicate that one last time:
It does not matter if it's bad or harmless, if it's installed or not, if it takes a moment or a life time, if it's one click or a thousand, if it's opt-in or opt-out, what matters to me is that I want to be asked before anything happens on my machine, i.e. I want a real chance to decide for myself.

From this stand, the message I'm sending a developer that bundles it in his installer is that I loathe such stealth practices and has nth to do with dismissing his work.

This is my last post in this thread, I've already contributed enough in keeping the headlights on OpenCandy - we'll just go our seperate ways.

Cheers

[garth]

Originally Posted by 26Dolphins

@Super Simple
Let me try to communicate that one last time:
It does not matter if it's bad or harmless, if it's installed or not, if it takes a moment or a life time, if it's one click or a thousand, if it's opt-in or opt-out, what matters to me is that I want to be asked before anything happens on my machine, i.e. I want a real chance to decide for myself.

I agree with 26Dolphins in this. I suppose it can be argued that the choice is made when the install of the OC bundled freeware is begun, and i can't really dispute that, but we all have to make our own choices and as i already said, i choose to reject anything bundled with OC, and if that means i miss out on some good freeware then so be it. I don't think i have anything further to add to this discussion either.