OK, I can understand the need for income (and I probably would pay something for a clean installer if it came to that)... But adding this sort of crapware to the installer is really a bad move.
Firstly, anyone with a clue will skip that step in setup.
Second, so many AV programs are detecting aMSN's installer now that it will be hard to download (or worse, waste people's bandwidth as they re-download the file their AV keeps deleting).
Third, the few people stupid enough to blindly click to install whatever rubbish Opencandy supply are also stupid enough to simply jump out and claim aMSN is a virus, and loudly spread the word that it is.
Moving along, I know it's your forum, but the swearing seems unnecessary. I'm a fairly long time aMSN user (I vaguely remember version 0.6 being exciting), and have promoted it endlessly to anyone who ever says bad words about any other MSN client...
I'm fairly offended that the author of the software would stoop to the lows of name calling and swearing just because someone dared to question possible malware being distributed with the installer. I know he/she was blunt and a bit rude, but a rant with Tourette syndrome seems a little
Personally, I'm fine with skipping the suggested rubbish and getting on with things. In fact, I did ages ago without even noticing. The only reason I'm here now is because my AV software said the installer I still had sitting on a server was infected (it saw it when I was browsing that folder for the first time in months).
First, OpenCandy isn't "crapware", there were other propositions for an installer partnership which we refused and decided to choose opencandy (even if it gave less revenue) because we think it's a good project. The 'recommended apps' that are shown in the installer were chosen by us, anything we didn't like, we removed from the selection, so it's not them suggestion 'anything' to you. Secondly, even if it means roughly 5 times less revenue, we made the installer with opt-in instead of opt-out (by default it doesn't select "install").
Also, like you said, anyone with a clue will skip that step (and you didn't even notice it).. good for them, how is it an issue then if you can just simply skip it? I don't see an issue with that personally. As for the 'virus' issues, opencandy was never considered a virus and it doesn't make you install adware/spyware (only useful apps that we chose ourselves), but a few months ago there was an issue when the microsoft defender decided to flag opencandy as a virus, and opencandy have been very responsive with us and they got in contact with microsoft, figured out what microsoft didn't like, fixed their SDK, redeployed, we recreated the installer, they did the QA of the installer and we rereleased a new installer, and it was all during a few days (less than a week if I remember correctly).
Stuff like that happens, and you got your AV to flag it only because you had the old installer and an updated virus definition. This also has little to do with OpenCandy itself since I believe it happened twice before that amsn.exe itself was flagged as a virus for no reason until the AV programs fixed that false positive.
About the 'Tourette syndrome', you're saying that you're offended, in which case I apologize to you, however, you have to put yourself in my shoes, you need to understand that after giving support for 10 years to the millions of users that we have, my temper got short, and I have absolutely no tolerance for people who are rude! The original post wasn't about OpenCandy and being flagged as a virus, it wasn't about "why is it there?" it was some random guy giving us an order, thinking he's superior to us and that we must comply to his wishes simply because he says so. I would have taken a completely different tone if there was a single "please" or "could you..?" in his post, but there weren't, it was an ultimatum: "If this is not removed soon I going to use the official msn.", it was a threat! I believe that he deserved far worse than what I replied to him with, as I don't like being threatened.
You don't go to someone's house after they invite you for dinner and then you threaten them to bring you some champagne or you're going to leave... then complain if they tell you "well then, get the fuck out of my house".
So like I said, I didn't swear because he "dared to question possible malware being distributed", I sweared because of his assertions and threat and completely rude attitude. I believe that someone who does not respect me does not deserve respect in return.
Hope that answers your questions!
KaKaRoTo
