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Real's Reality
"There's also an interesting conversation going on at Jogin.com, which started with this post from the author, basically a rant, describing how inconvenient and even hostile Real Player is. It would be like any other rant, except an employee of Real Networks replied with some insights into the company's wrongdoings and somewhat explained Real's undeterred hostility towards those who downloaded the free version of its player. Furthermore, a consultant, who used to work at Real Networks, replied, sharing some questionable practices Real engaged in, such as hiding a variety of "add-ons" at the bottom of the page, hoping that the user would not scroll down to un-check the selections, and then charging his credit card for add-ons when he signed up for paid version on Real One."
I like what the car talk guys had to say about Real:
http://cartalk.com/Radio/windowsmedia-switch.html
Car Talk will now be available via the Windows Media Player, rather than RealMedia. That's right, we're unceremoniously dumping RealMedia.
Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we finally decided to take action.
Here's the problem. In order to hear our audio, you have to go to Real.com and download their "free" RealPlayer. But when you get to the web site, the free player is harder to find than Osama Bin Laden at night. And the site seems to do everything it possibly can to get you to "buy" a player instead. You have to work very hard to get the free player. And we think that stinks. And get this. It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?
We've heard from many of our fans that have been duped, and who have accidentally shelled out their hard-earned dineros. And we won't even get into the ways that the RealPlayer tries to take over your computer once you install it. So, after surveying the alternatives, we're switching to Windows Media Player (which works on Macs, too).
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
I stopped using Real products after reading this
You can download previous versions of RealPlayer at the Real Legacy Software Archive. The previous versions should still play 95% of RealMedia content because they don't change around the codec, and the old versions don't have the bloat of the new ones. Plus they include versions of the player for Linux(TM), Solaris, IRIX, AIX and others at their community-supported UNIX download center.
-BIG ASS LINK to their paid player, and damned near invisible links to their older, free download players.
buffering... buffering...
-Huge application window hogged by distracting crap.
buffering... buffering...
-When people download a media player, it's probably because they want to view some media right fucking now, not after filling out a long-ass registration thing and setting a shitload of preferences.
buffering... buffering...
-That stupid Goddamned tray icon that will not die. Where's the "FUCK OFF" button when you need it? Anytime I see that shit in the systray on a client's machine, I go right into regedit and nuke it because the incessant blinking drives me into a rage.
And last, but certainly not least:
buffering... buffering...
Sorry, I should have clarified. I did not personally create or submit this letter. A friend of mine was BCC'd on it.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
No one will mention QuickTime here for serveral reasons: it works, it's unintrusive, and it's free.
That sort of shit just doesn't fly here.
Obligatory Open Source plug: it's not open source so it sucks.
I think I just about said all that there is to say.
--Richard
Not if you're using a Mac OS X, all you gotta do is delete the folder the player is installed in. This works for the free version anyways...It also (amazingly) works to copy a folder from one computer to another and it still functions.
Not if you're using a Mac OS X, all you gotta do is delete the folder the player is installed in. This works for the free version anyways...It also (amazingly) works to copy a folder from one computer to another and it still functions.
This is one thing the Mac does right -- a program's binaries and configuration data are all self-contained. No registry, no /etc. This has advantages. Of course it makes it easier to pirate software. I read here on Slashdot a year or so ago about a guy in Texas who witnessed a man walking into a CompUSA, hooking up his iPod, and downloading Mac Office over Firewire. Because everything is self-contained, all he had to do was drag and drop the "Office" folder and he was done.
When I write software for Linux or for Windows, I try to do the same thing. My Windows software uses the "deprecated" INI files in the executable directory instead of the super-bloated registry, and I try to set up sensible defaults and make programs load from ~/etc if possible in Linux.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
And here are some URLs:
Real Alternative & Quicktime Alternative (middle of the page)
Media Player Classic (again, middle of the page)
Enjoy!
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
Real Player used to be a simple piece of audio (then later video) playing software. Now its becomeiwng one of those applications that wants to dominate your system and do everything from playing media to making eggs.
Your best bet is to download Real Alternative. It bundles the Realplayer Codecs (the newest 10.0 version) with the simple Media Player Classic UI, so you can watch and listen to Realplayer content without the annoying popups and spyware.
Gstreamer is LGPL
Free Software NUT
All so that when some idiot plugs his iPod into his PC the thing will pop up iTunes or whatever and do something or other, and the idiot can exclaim "Wow! Magic Apple software duhhhhhh!".
Actually configuration data is generally not stored in the same place as the application...pre-OS X it was all stored in the "Preferences" folder in the System Folder which made it easy to find. Under OS X it's a little bit more tricky, user specific prefs are stored inside your ~/Library/Preferences, and system wide prefs in /Library/Preferences. Some apps also make their own .appconfig files in various places inside your home directory. Granted this still is pretty easy to figure out and removal of these files is a sinch since you can just drag them to the trash and delete them normalls.
My Windows software uses the "deprecated" INI files in the executable directory instead of the super-bloated registry ...
Eep. Stop right there, you're standing on a landmine. INI files on a modern system should be put in the per-user "Application Data" folder. You can retrieve its path using SHGetSpecialFolderPath (95/IE 4.0 or 98+) or SHGetFolderPath (98/IE 5.0 or 98SE+) using the CSIDL_APPDATA constant. If you've fail to do this, your app is currently giving ulcers to some innocent admin of WinNT-family boxes who now has to manually add extra NTFS permissions for the Everyone group to your app's install folder. Your app also doesn't work correctly with multiple users (all users share the same settings), under roaming profiles (settings are per-machine, not per-user), or running off a network drive (Ha! Like *your* app deserves chmod a+w on the Samba server!). As an added bonus, your app may stop working under XP SP2 (or after some Critical Update in the unspecified future) and almost certainly will be b0rked by the time Longhorn comes out (if MS isn't a completely lost cause, they'll have stopped making users Admin by default by that timeframe).
Range Voting: preference intensity matters
You can usually leave the key in the Run section of the registry and just delete the value (the path to the program). A blank key won't do anything and won't throw any errors. Many applications only check for the existence of their keys and never realize that they're empty. I'm not sure about Real software, but this trick works for a lot of other stuff.
They do keep them available, however hidden they are.
Like all of the above, I too got fed up with anything Real has put out lately, for obvious reasons. That and it spontaneously reboots everyone's machines here in the lab.
Did some searching, found Media Player Classic (Article)- it's an open source clone of Windows Media Player before it got all colorful, space wasting, and less functional (WMP 8-9). Plus, with a bit more Google searching, I found Real codec packs for it as well. On the rare occasion I need to play Real content, I can.
The recent Helix milestones are great
Clean looking player, no bloat, great quality, plugin gets even the most troublesome pages (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod, for example) working just sweet
There's a 0.2.1 Milestone (crack out the party hats - we got a 0.2.1 milestone!, but I digress..) out. There are Solaris, Symbian (!), GNU/ Linux RPMs and tars with installer, as well as the src, obviously
you can get it here
There are still shed loads of forms to click and agree to, you gotta signup, etc, etc. but they *say* this is part of their new, GPL-friendly and OSI-certified ways.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Go to the BBC News site first and get the link from there (it'll be under one of their video clips). Saves wading through all the sales puff for the paid-for player. Does anyone use the paid-for version anyway?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
real alternative allows you to play all realmedia files without having to install realplayer.
FYI, you can sometimes get around HP's crap by downloading the corporate version of their drivers. Usually, they just actually supply, wait for it, the printer drivers! That way the printer prints just fine without all the extra BS and the files aren't as much of a hog to download.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.