Real's Reality

prostoalex writes "While Real Networks claims its market share and low profit numbers are the result of Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, there are some alternative views. News.com has an article on Real's reality, which reveals many interesting practices that Real resorted to. "Although RealNetworks had already licensed Microsoft's formats for use in its media player, it didn't have Windows Media licenses for its server technology. Undeterred, the company found a way to essentially replicate the Windows Media code, trumpeting its new software as the Internet's first "universal" streaming system", says News.com." Read on for more.

"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."

Comments

What do...

[andy55]

Q: What do microsoft and RealNetworks have in common?
A: It takes a HD format to remove their software.

Re:What do...

[Hi_2k]

Thats not true at all. You can't uninstall evil

Re:What do...

[The Snowman]

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.

Re:What do...

[Lord Apathy]

I've got a simular story. I working in senstive data back in '87/'89. I didn't handle any senstive data just the blokes over in the other cube. I was a low tech. board jocky at the time who's sole purpose in life was to test graphics boards. Meaning I would pull them out of a tub, put them in the workstation, and see if the pretty pictures would come up.

Working night shifts all of us testers would get tired of the pictures of landscapes, weird ass looking people, and clouds. We would start loading our own pictures into the mix. Some would do cars others planes, but the most popular was, you guess it, porn. I had 500 mb of some of the finest qualty gifs that I could scavange off of usenet.

Well one day I got told to report to work early. Some men in suits where outside the bosses office, I got called in and ask about my harddrive. I thought they had found my secret porn collection but it turned out the blokes up the hill had been "compromised." They where destroying all harddrives and data in the building. Don't ask me why, I did't ask. I just went and fetched my harddrive.

Okay, I figured they where going deguass it, format it, or just beat it with a hammer. Well they took us all out back, there was about ten of us. They took the harddrives from us and set them out in the field. Then some dude in army fatigues pulled an M-16 out of the car, walked out there, and shot each drive 3 times.

The fuckers shot my porn collection...Bastards...

Sad..

[Tyir]

I know we are all REALLY sad about REAL's demise.. I think it is more to do with their annoying habits of putting themselves in the start menu, the quickstart, the system tray, and anywhere else they can get...

Bloated

[mod_critical]

I know why I don't use Real player anymore...

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. RealMessage Center? A constantly running tray icon? Asking me every 2 seconds if I _really_ want it to not be the default player for everything...

RealNetworks might not be having troubles if they were able to produce significantly more advanced codecs and didn't resort to bloat. No innovation, no company, regardless of whether your player can polish my shoes or not.

Re:Bloated

[porp]

Real hates MS so they chose to port to Linux. Their Linux ports were even worse than their windows counterparts. Hell, they're worse than any media player listed on sourceforge right now. Screw them being a major company to port a binary junk software to Linux. They were just being greedy not generous. And to say they could gain market share with their playback software is insane--someone has to encode it to that format to begin with. And I know when I see a file to streamed in Real Audio format, I know not to click there because it opens Real's software. Good riddance to them. They sucked in 1996, and they suck now.

porp

Car Talk

[Twid]

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).

hidden add-ons

[Coneasfast]

this is unrelated to the hidden paid add-ons, but when using the free player, you get a list of add-ons you want (add to favourites, desktop shortcut, etc etc), the first 4 are unchecked by default, but if you scroll down there are more, which ARE checked. very sneaky if you ask me. they could have easily increased the size of the viewable list from 4 items

Another "Blame Microsoft" Business Model

[Naked Chef]

Similar to the RIAA blaming Napster for their poor sales, Real just assumes their business is going doen the toilet because of something MS did (they must have done SOMETHING evil, right?). I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that their product is just bloated spyware, or poor corporate leadership, or the "bunker mentality" at Real that the article mentions...

Real Spy

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped using Real products after reading this

The best realplayer was... *drumroll*

[oldosadmin]

Realplayer G2 w/RealJukebox.

Great design. I loved it... then it started happening *cue sad music*... The upgrades... they said "RealONE" was the thing... but all it did was take away my ability to listen to crap online for free.

Free Carolina Hurricanes webcast? Gone. $29.95 a month.

Free Carolina Panthers webcast? Gone. Buy NFL Field Pass.

Free racing webcasts? Gone.

Now, I don't mind ads. Heck, I run a website, I live on ads [cheap plug]go to oldos.org and clickyclicky on my google text ads [/cheap plug]. I wouldn't mind listening to ads during the game, watching cheap flash ads before listening, or anything like this. How come TV can survive without needed subscriptions (skin-e-max and h-blow excluded), but internet webcasts can't?

Striking out with Baseball

[icebike]

Perhaps these practices are why REAL has reportedly lost the single biggest contract they ever had which was broadcasting Major League Baseball play by play for $10 per season per listener/viewer.
While no huge amount of money for REAL, it was one of the single largest revenue sources, much of the rest of the revenue stream was from individual purchases of the player.

Supposedly this year its gone to someone else.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/10/technology/techi nv estor/hellweg/

Actual letter to Real Networks

[kneecarrot]

I've posted this before, but it's a goodie...

TO: Real Networks
SUBJECT: Fuck You All

I am holding myself back in the most intense way at the moment.

I don't care if this is the wrong address to send this to. Your website is a labyrinth of misdirection in which finding the simple thing you want is nigh-impossible. This, after about 20 clicks, was the first email address I came to. If you, as the person receiving this letter, have a shred of humanity left, you will submit this to the proper people. And now, on to my letter.

Where do you people get off?

My task: download Realplayer in order to view some streaming content. A simple project, one would say. Well, first you have to wade through the aforementioned sea of misdirection, all of it aimed at extracting your visa number to buy the completely useless realplayer plus. I realize you people need to make some money, but save it for the server business - it's bad enough that back in the day, you were inferior to several other streaming technologies, but somehow, like scum in water, you rose to the top. Leave the users who are stuck with your products out of your sick little power games.

All I want is Realplayer Basic, to play realmedia, and ONLY realmedia. I am not interested in realjukebox, realdownloadagent, or realbuttplug. I specified this when I was installing it. I also am not interested in having your inferior product play my mp3s, or any format other than your own. This was also specified when I installed. How difficult a concept is this? Anyone can grasp it. And I won't even get into the god-knows-how-many useless "subscribe to our spam service!" checkboxes I have to uncheck, including five which are HIDDEN AT THE BOTTOM OF A STACK OF UNCHECKED ONES. With each click, the bile rises higher in my throat. If I knew a satanist, I would have him summon demons to terrorize your offices.

So then, I go to launch an mp3 out of Agent, and not only does your software launch even though I SPECIFICALLY TOLD IT NOT TO DO THAT, but it's not even Realplayer - it's Realjukebox which I also SPECIFICALLY TOLD IT NOT TO INSTALL.

And here's the real point: if you're going to go ahead and do a fascist coup of my system's preferences and resources (getting your filthy little icons out of my system tray gets more difficult with each new version), why bother pretending that you are giving me a choice? Just go ahead and take it, save me the trouble of unchecking all those boxes and saying No 20 times. Just go ahead, play your little game, and let me get on with removing your annoying system resource wastes from my pristine desktop.

In closing, I would just like to say that I view your company as the most evil force operating on the internet today, and while I would end this with "may God have mercy on your souls" for anyone else (including Bill Gates), for you, I only pray that the people behind your software's design are raped by syphilitic camels at some point.

Burn in hell.

Real sucks ass and here's why:

[Anonymous Coward]

-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...

Underhanded business practices too...

[konfoo]

I'm sure many readers will find this gem interesting:

About 3 years ago I made mention in a closed streaming media group discussion of Real's flaws in their DRM 'solution'. This was widely published, and I was not the starter of the thread. However, I did drop the line (or something like it) of the solution being 'amateur hour'. Real's at-that-time marketing manager was on the list, and proceeded to track down my particulars and call up management at my company accusing me of 'hacking' their DRM product. I understand he was quite miffed. Ofcourse I posted this back to the list and didn't hear a peep.

The long and short of this story - not only does Real make a shitty spamware/adware/annoyanceware product and try to get developers for free with their 'community source' claptrap, but they also go to interesting lengths to stir up bullshit to protect their interests.

These days I am still at the same company, and architect my own product line. Whenever a customer asks about support for RealMedia, I laugh. Then I tell them this story. And thats the last we hear of the request. Oddly enough, I have never had anyone doubt me - gee I wonder why!

A tip for Real - listen to your customers. And if you have bugs and/or shitty software, fix them.

No such a bad player.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I think th[BUFFERING...BUFFERING]at Real is a good music and vid[BUFFERING...BUFFERING]eo player. It's not perfect b[BUFFERING...BUFFERING]ut it works ok. Combine that with my new MSN high [BUFFERING...BUFFERING] speed internet and life is peRF3*&DHAH0+0+[NO CARRIER]

Surprised, but not really

[bdaehlie]

RealOne Player for Mac OS X is a sweet app. No prefs hijacking, looks good, works even better. I like it more than Apple's Quicktime Player. Perhaps there is just something about Mac OS X that commands respect from developers - Windows version of this same app sounds like a real POS.

registration...

[dj245]

I had to register my realplayer the other day. The following e-mail addresses were already taken.

fucku@real.com
realplayersucks@realplayer.com
pissoff@real.com
bob@bob.com
bill@microsoft.com
fucku2@real.com
fucku2xwithdonkey@real.com
fuckusidewayswithbroomstick@real.com

At this point I was tired of making creative statements of protest against registration so I gave a fake hotmail account.

Some nerve...

[I Love this Company!]

Hey, I don't appreciate all of this anti-Real Networks and anti-Microsoft senti...[BUFFERING 0.03%]

Re:Apple anyone???

[michrech]

Nope. It doesn't interupt me at...

Upgrade to Pro / Run now / Cancel

NO, I don't want to upgrade now, just RUN.

...all. It just works..

Upgrade to Pro / Run now / Cancel

NO! I don't want to upgrade to the pro version! JUST RUN!!

...the way Apple intended it to...

Upgrade to Pro / Run now / Cancel

GET OFF MY SCREEN!! When I want the pro version I'll get to ...

Upgrade to Pro / Run now / Cancel

HELP! GO AWAY!!

Yup.. unintrusive.. Completely. (Of course, those aren't the exact wording on the buttons, but you all get the idea)...

Anyway..

I call "shenanigans"!

[nxs212]

The reason they are in trouble is because of their poor vision of the future.
We (company of 40,000) looked at their multicasting technology and news delivery in 1997. We liked what we saw and wanted to license or buy it for the entire company. They said "NO" - Real still wanted access to our desktops in the form of ads. I guess they thought there was a lot of money in that.
Think logically, why would any CIO sign off on a product to keep his employees busy watching ads instead of doing real work?
They did crawl back (at least a year later) and try to sell just the engine piece but no one was interested. There was better stuff available out there and cheaper by the time they realized their mistake.

why hasn't anyone mentioned this?

[bugg_superstar]

real alternative allows you to play all realmedia files without having to install realplayer.