Want Great Apps? Think OpenCandy

We've all been there right? You go to install a new application you downloaded from the Internet. Everything goes fine, but you notice something odd after the installation: there is now another application, which you have never heard of, installed on your PC along with the one you downloaded. OpenCandy is a startup whose aim is to prevent this from happening.

So who is OpenCandy, you ask? I recently spoke with Dr. Apps of OpenCandy, who explained what the company does. OpenCandy partners with developers and integrates recommendations into the developers' software installers. This allows developers to offer other high-quality software to users. However, with OpenCandy, you won't end up accidentally installing horrible applications along with what you wanted.

To prevent "crapware" from ending up on your PC, OpenCandy does two things. First, they partner with developers of high-quality applications. Each application that is recommended to users is compared against quality guidelines that keep the malware and bad software out, according to Dr. Apps. This ensures that any app recommended through OpenCandy will be of the highest standard.

Second, OpenCandy implements an "opt-in" recommendation system. The example I cited earlier no doubt was the result of an "opt-out" situation. The difference is that, with OpenCandy, users must select a recommended app to install. This prevents accidental installations due to an app already being selected. So even though OpenCandy only works with high-quality software, users will never end up with mystery software automatically installing on their PC.

OpenCandy also allows developers to choose which apps are to be recommended during the installation of their software. This means that if a user installs an app that he likes, such as PrimoPDF, the recommended software will be an app that the makers of PrimoPDF like. So not only is OpenCandy keeping the apps to a high standard, so are the developers of the software users are installing.

OpenCandy's strategy is to allow users to discover great apps that they might never have found. A few developers already partnered with OpenCandy are those from BitTorrent, Flock, and FL Studio.

And OpenCandy is growing at a record pace. Downloads with OpenCandy involved grew 19% month-over-month in the past year. The co-founder of Excite and Google executive Joe Kraus has recently joined OpenCandy's board of directors, as well. If you would like to find out more about OpenCandy, check out their site at www.opencandy.com. To see OpenCandy in action, visit www.youtube.com/candyisopen.