Please Ditch Open Candy

[MrPj]

The program author or some other authoritative person once said on this site

 

"You always have the option of saying 'No' to such things,

just as you always have in the past with the Ask.com toolbar as bundled with previous versions"

 

Nonsense my AV & my firewall apps take turns in seeing who is the fastest to quarantine it

and before you suggest it NO I am not even thinking of running without them, too big a risk

 

Prior to open candy no problems post open candy just cannot install, nor do I want to risk it

I have made nominal small donations under various usernames that I have used previously.

 

Please ditch open candy, or is there a non open candy version for a small donation (again sigh)

however I would expect upgrades to come open candy free in consideration of the small donation

 

Kind Regards

MrPj

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JohnnyBob]

Ditto.

 

Open Candy is getting very major negative vibes recently. Even some antimalware such as avira is blocking is as a virus. People are unhappy.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCandy

 

 

 

(I just edited to Wiki to include a few helpful references, but still think you should dump it!)

Edited January 6, 2016 by JohnnyBob

[Sizzlechest]

Extract all the files from the installer using a program like 7Zip. Make an install.bat file using this:

@echo off
goto check_Permissions

:check_Permissions
echo Administrative permissions required. Detecting permissions...

net session >nul 2>&1
if %errorLevel% == 0 (
    echo Success: Administrative permissions confirmed.
) else (
    echo Failure: Current permissions inadequate.
    pause >nul
    exit 1
)


set prgf=%ProgramFiles%

if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%"=="AMD64" set prgf=%ProgramFiles(x86)%
if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432%"=="AMD64" set prgf=%ProgramFiles(x86)%
if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%"=="IA64" set prgf=%ProgramFiles(x86)%
if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432%"=="IA64" set prgf=%ProgramFiles(x86)%

mkdir "%prgf%\ImgBurn\Sounds"
copy "%~dp0\ImgBurn.exe" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\."
copy "%~dp0\ImgBurnPreview.exe" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\."
copy "%~dp0\ReadMe.txt" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\."
copy "%~dp0\uninstall.exe" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\."
copy "%~dp0\Sounds\Error.wav" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\Sounds\."
copy "%~dp0\Sounds\Success.wav" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\Sounds\."

mkdir "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\ImgBurn"
cscript "%~dp0\createLink.vbs" "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\ImgBurn\ImgBurn.lnk" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\ImgBurn.exe"
cscript "%~dp0\createLink.vbs" "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\ImgBurn\ImgBurn Read Me.lnk" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\ReadMe.txt"
cscript "%~dp0\createLink.vbs" "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\ImgBurn\Uninstall.lnk" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\uninstall.exe"
cscript "%~dp0\createLink.vbs" "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\ImgBurn.lnk" "%prgf%\ImgBurn\ImgBurn.exe"

reg import "%~dp0\EnableCDROM.reg"

echo.
echo Press any key to close installer.
pause >nul

Here's EnableCDROM.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\cdrom]
"Start"=dword:00000001

I don't remember if the createLink.vbs is part of IMGBurn or I got it from somewhere else, but here that is:

set objWSHShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

' command line arguments
' TODO: error checking
sShortcut = objWSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(WScript.Arguments.Item(0))
sTargetPath = objWSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(WScript.Arguments.Item(1))
sWorkingDirectory = objFso.GetAbsolutePathName(sShortcut)

set objSC = objWSHShell.CreateShortcut(sShortcut)

objSC.TargetPath = sTargetPath
objSC.WorkingDirectory = sWorkingDirectory

objSC.Save

Edited March 3, 2017 by Sizzlechest

[JohnnyBob]

I recently did complete scans with Malwarebytes and Superantispyware and one of them found your opencandy junk and removed it OK. Maybe that's easiest.

[Sizzlechest]

Are you saying it modified the installer and you tested the installer afterwards to see if it worked?

[JohnnyBob]

No. I installed ImgBurn on this box a year or more ago and wasn't aware of adware. Then I ran those softwares a couple of months ago, found opencandy, and removed it. I put 2+2 together. Seems a reasonable hypothesis.

[Sizzlechest]

Opencandy is part of the installer, which is what people are complaining about. They want an installer that's free of it. Now, you can avoid Opencandy by running it from the command line using the /NOCANDY switch. The problem is that people like me use this in a corporate environment and when the company's antivirus picks up the installer as a virus, I have to explain how "it's no big deal." Even though we blocked the whole opencandy.com domain, which renders the issue moot, the fact it shows up in the scan is still a problem. By extracting all the files from the installer and using my batch file, VBS file, and REG file, you can use that to do an install and avoid opencandy completely.

 

AFAIK, there is no Opencandy code in the APPLICATION itself, just the installer.

 

EDIT: The download on Betanews says there's no Opencandy bundled:

 

https://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/ImgBurn/1128426215/1

 

Here are the hashes:

 

CRC32: 1AF3CD36
MD5: 4BF2B8F4B46385BFDA4D65E423CFB868
SHA-1: 6A3D20796E1FCD4169D5D339AF6E491DCEA3367C
 

Edited March 3, 2017 by Sizzlechest