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I don't use Real Player because it's shit. Instead I downloaded the K-Lite Codec Pack which includes the Real (and QuickTime) alternative codecs which lets me play Real Media and QuickTime files (in addition to the host of others) in whatever media player I prefer.

The problem with Real is that you are practically required to download their media player to play Real Media. I see why this is, but I don't like their player in the least (same goes double for the QuickTime player). This goes back to my statement about making a better product -- these products aren't better in the least. I won't knock them for trying though.

"Media Player Classic" is a great alternative to quicktime, realplayer, and WMP. It's GNU, and works on about 90% of the media I've tried:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

Full sets of codecs for it are at:
http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/

One of the first things I do with a fresh Windows installation is installing K-Lite Codecs.

It includes every codecs you need, WMP Classic, a Real-Player alternative, and a QuickTime alternative.

It works great, and its free.

it is called Real Alternative - found here

Your best bet is a fantastic little program called Media Player Classic v6.4.8.2 by Gabest, which I first discovered as part of the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

All the cleanliness of WMP6, and even more functionality than WMP9! And yes, it's GPLed.

It's so nice being able to install almost all the audio and video codecs known to man in one go by downloading ONE codec pack, without having to deal with all the legal bullshit of each individually.

Anyway, just wanted to point you people at the great klite codec pack. the Nemo codec pack used to be top dog, but the maintainer has been slacking off in recent years; maybe he graduated.

When you get yourself a copy of this, and install the real alternative, though you might perhaps need a copy of this

Check out k-litecodecpack.com.

And then, in the virtually ignored fourth corner, we have the stuff that isn't totally assraped by big (or not so big, in Real's case) corporations. MP3. Ogg. Freaking gzipped .AU for all I care. AND NO ONE USES ANY OF THIS STUFF.

Some sectons of the "alternative" media have caught on and are using "alternative" formats. Democracy Now! is one of the best examples--they provide RealMedia, MP3, and OGG versions of their show--and the A-infos Radio Project offers its content in MP3.

But it's still hard to avoid RealMedia. Of the sites I frequent, BBC's excellent On This Day site uses it, MIT's Technology and Culture Forum and UCBerkely's webcast site use it, and the ABC (public broadcaster) here in Australia uses it almost exclusively for their online audio/video content. Thank god for Real Alternative.

The Kazaa Lite Codec Pack provides codecs for many formats, and it doesn't even require you to install Kazaa/Kazaa Lite. Available from http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/ Not a member, just a satisfied customer.

It replaces and plays Quicktime, Realplayer, Windows Media, and much more. It comes with encoding options as well.

The trick to playing random downloaded video in this day and age is to download a pack of codecs. For Windows, I recommend DefilerPak; it doesn't have every codec, but it has the most important ones and seems to have caused me the least amount of headache. You could also try the K-Lite Codec Pack, which also seems to to work pretty well.

My biggest complaint with quicktime is that it bugs you every time you open it to upgrade to Pro and like real it throws itself into my systray.

I know use alternatives to both Real and QT (available here) but I haven't tested them that thoroughly to recommend them to everybody. They use classic media player with added codecs which loads up in a quarter of the time and doesn't put crap everywhere.

I'm not a programmer, so I have a question for those of you who are.

Would these same sorts of vulner's apply to Real Alternative too, or does the active X wrapper prevent the hack?