OpenCandy and Tux Paint
Starting in June 2011, the Windows installer for Tux Paint utilizes OpenCandy to provide a recommendation for other software you might be interested in. This recommendation occurs during the Tux Paint installation process, and does not affect Tux Paint itself. (That is, no recommendations will appear within Tux Paint.)
If you install a recommended program, this earns the Tux Paint project some income, which helps support the development, maintenance and advertising of the project, and encourages the developers to continue working on it. (As of June 2011, earnings go directly to the lead developer of the project, Bill Kendrick).
How OpenCandy Works
After you agree to the End User License Agreement (EULA) during the installation of Tux Paint, the installer will contact OpenCandy's servers and, using the following information about your system, choose a software package to recommend to you (from a set that the Tux Paint project has approved):
- geo-location
- operating system)
- language setting)
- aggregated statistics about your system)
(used to determine whether or not you already have a product installed, to avoid recommending something you already have)
It will also send information to the server regarding whether the recommendation had been accepted, downloaded, and installed.
Note: The OpenCandy system is designed to never collect information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact or locate an individual user.
More information from OpenCandy:
- OpenCandy (home page)
- What Information Does OpenCandy Collect?
- Privacy Policy
- Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Avoid OpenCandy?
Yes! We will continue to provide a completely free Windows installer version of Tux Paint, without OpenCandy integrated into it, along with the OpenCandy version.
Additionally, you can run the OpenCandy-enabled Tux Paint installer with a command-line option: "/NOCANDY" to disable OpenCandy.
Finally, the portable, self-contained ZIPped version of Tux Paint does not use an installer, and therefore does not include OpenCandy.
Who Else Uses OpenCandy?
A number of other open source and shareware projects have started using OpenCandy to help offset their development costs:
At the time of writing, a few of OpenCandy partners include:
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To find more free educational software, please visit www.educational-freeware.com.
Did you know? Tux Paint is named after Tux the penguin, the mascot of the Linux operating system. "Tux" is short for tuxedo.