How CardTray is funded

CardTray is free — no paid tier, no ads. It is funded by the bundled Massive SDK, which shares a slice of your idle bandwidth when it can.

"When it can" is not a hedge. Only one Clearware tray app shares at a time, so if another one is already sharing on this PC, CardTray will not.

The part worth reading twice

Sharing is what pays for the games, so they stop with it. Turn the switch off and the four game tiles are disabled until you turn it back on: each shows Bandwidth sharing is off with a Turn sharing on in Settings button, and a game in progress is covered with Paused — sharing is off. Your game is saved; nothing is lost.

What stays available: Themes, Settings, Feedback, the Solvers screen, and watching a solution already stored there.

What it does and does not do

The app's own words: CardTray never uploads your files. It is free because it shares a small amount of your computer's unused internet bandwidth. Those are two separate things and neither one touches your data.

The shared bandwidth relays other parties' ordinary web traffic across your connection. It does not read your games, your disk or your screen. Massive processes the device data it needs to route that traffic, such as your IP address, under its own privacy policy, linked from the installer's Massive page.

Turning it off

Three places, all equivalent: Settings → Share idle bandwidth, Share idle bandwidth on the CardTray tray menu, or Massive's own tray icon. A stop from Massive's icon is honoured — CardTray shows Off · stopped in Massive and will not restart sharing behind you.

There is no automatic pausing on metered connections, no automatic back-off while you are using the network, and no bandwidth cap. Sharing is not paused while you play.

Uninstalling ends participation completely and removes the Massive agent — Windows' Add or remove programs, find CardTray, Uninstall.

Exchange status

What usually goes wrong

I switched sharing on and it went straight back off. Sharing could not be started. appears under the switch. Check that Massive is installed and running, then switch it on again.

CardTray shows a full screen: "CardTray needs Massive running to stay free." Neither way of sharing could start on this PC. Re-enable Massive from its own icon in the Windows tray, then press Retry. If you would rather not share bandwidth, How to uninstall CardTray on that screen explains how to remove it — see Uninstalling.

Another Clearware app is already sharing. CardTray shows Sharing and works as normal. If that app stops sharing, CardTray takes over automatically.