Charade is an ssh-agent in cygwin that proxies requests to pageant. If you don't use cygwin or pageant, you don't need charade. If you're happy with plink, you don't need charade. (I love putty, but I prefer openssh to plink.) Background: I tolerate Windows XP. I actually quite like it. But it needs putty, and it needs cygwin to be usable. I used to maintain two separate sets of ssh keys: one for