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Mozilla Partners with Real Networks
engineer_uhg writes to tell us that Mozilla has just entered into a multi-year agreement with Real Networks to have Firefox distributed with downloads of RealPlayer, Rhapsody, and RealArcade. The Mozilla team cited Real's estimated 2 million downloads per day as a great tool for distribution. However, many Firefox supporters question the move, complaining of questionable practices by Real.
While I certainly wish Mozilla the best of luck in ramping up the distribution of their products, I wish they'd picked a better net citizen to accomplish that goal.
We don't have to get RealPlayer or any of Reals other crap crammed down our collective throats with our FireFox downloads, i don't care what they do.
~Mozleron
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups
I keep tryi.... *buffering*.... ng to read.... *buffering*.... the story...
The reason RealPlayer has 2 million downloads per day? Because people download it, install it, use it for what they need... then get it hell off their machine! RealPlayer is worse than a virus! Mozilla, why?! That's like partnering with cocaine dealers because they distribute to 2 million people a day. Ughhh! I feel DIRTY!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
That understates the reaction quite a bit. Real is one of the worst things to hit the Internet since AOL, IMHO
Bundled downloads suck, especially for people with slow internet connections.
Just give me what I requested, don't add a bunch of crap to the download that I don't need or want. Does Mozilla want Firefox to become "That crappy browser that came with the music player"?
...a partnership with the government of Nigeria.
Opera will tout itself as a new standard as the preferred Acid 2 compliant browser of 419 scammers.
Its a really bad idea to tarnish the name of Firefox with an association with the malware known as realplayer. Big thumbs down.
Mozilla has just entered into a multi-year agreement with Real Networks
Look, if you plan to sell your soul, at least sell it to the devil himself, not just any ol' schmuck in goat leggings.
Like Billy G - Now he might have given you fame, power, glory, girls (hey, look at Melinda!). But no - Instead, you gave your soul to a guy named Phil who smokes too much and ends every sentence with "Trust me!".
In five years, when you all look back and wonder how you went from posing a serious threat to MSIE, to posing a sort-of-maybe threat to Opera - Remember this day.
Seriously.
By why the hell don't they distribute something like VLC or MPlayer? Real loves to brag and brag about their download stats, but I imagine most of those numbers are from their install base. I practically NEVER need to view RM. Almost everything I run into is Quicktime, MPEG, Windows Media, DivX, or Flash Video.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I already use Opera over Firefox because of, among many other things, the excessive memory footprint of Firefox. I don't think bundling it with bloated software like RealPlayer is the best way to improve that perception or problem.
Einstein, read the story again. Realplayer download will include firefox and will give users the option of installing firefox while they install realplayer. No one is embedding realplayer inside firefox.
At least you still CAN get firefox alone.
I can't download Itunes, unless I download Quicktime media player. I swear the only reason macs are better for video is because Apple has yet to create a GOOD version of Quicktime media player for the PC. Luckily MPC can use quicktime file formats, though I'm sure apple is mad about that one. But the fact I have to get their less than wonderful software on my system, infecting it, just so I can go use Itunes (which I enjoy), and listen to music (perhaps paying for more music)
I just hope firefox stays solo and corporately neutral, because it's the one thing that keeps Firefox high up in my book.
...that Firefox is being bundled with Real's stuff, not the other way around.
Idiots.
Dunno how you got modded insightful. If you checked the article, you'd see that it's Firefox getting bundled with Realplayer, not the reverse.
Sure, Real is bad, horrible, evil, but if they manage to get people away from IE (perhaps with the inclusion of a subtle "[X] Check here to make Firefox your default web browser", I'd say huzzah to the lesser of two evils.
And maybe (/wishful thinking) if the Fox devs can smack some sense into Real devs during downtime, added bonus.
Real player is bundled by a lot of OEM manufacturers. If this extends to that also, it will be a tremendous boon to Firefox!
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
So this changes nothing for users of FF, but might be good for Real users who clearly deserve to be expunged from the gene pool by virtue of having willfully downloaded the #1 rated crapware on teh interwebs.
At least maybe, maybe they'll use FF instead of IE, which is good at least until IE7 is generally available.
[1] I hope to hell that assumption is correct.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Here you go.
Though it is still 20MB!
Technology tips and tricks.
From what I read, it comes bundled with downloads of realplayer, but realplayer is not bundles with downloads of firefox.
In other words: Firefox=Firefox, Realplayer=Realplayer+Firefox
Still not the nicest company to bundle with in terms of reputation, but at least it doesn't seem that you're getting stuck with Real when installed firefox.
I wish there was a link to the complaints.
5 4250
Ask and ye shall receive:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/02/21
KFG
Yet.
I REPEAT, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT MOZILLA NOW PACKAGES REAL SOFTWARE WITH ITS PRODUCTS. IT IS THE OPPOSITE, REAL WILL NOW PACKAGE FIREFOX WITH THEIR PRODUCTS.
Can we call off the Calvary now?
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Knee-jerk now, read the article later.
If memory serves, this technique worked really well for Netscape.
Fire fox is just being bundled with their some of their downloads. It has nothing to do with firefox and video players. If the VLC or MPlayer people wanted to bundle firefox likely they could go ahead and do so quite easily.
Looking at your post though it seems like your asking why real isn't bundling vlc and mplayer though.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Tesla, read the comment again. He never said anything about *embedding*. Just that *bundling* Firefox with bloatware might not help some people's idea that Firefox is also bloatware. Not that I've ever thought that about FF. Mozilla suite perhaps, but not FF.
Why do you say realplayer doesnt affect you because you run linux?
I vastly prefer Realplayer over Quicktime because they distribute a decent linux client.
Without Realplayer more content would probably be in that shitty QT sorenson (or whatever) format which I cant play.
It amazes me that even MS content (Non-DRM) can be played back under linux but all the latest Quicktime encoded stuff is Apple / MS only.
Disclaimer -
If someone knows of a way to playback sorenson content under linux without resorting to wine running Quicktime please let me know.
I dont read
It is labeled insightful because people are idiots and they jump to conclusions. Real is not going to be bundled with Firefox... its the other way around.
You are all a bunch of idots.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/20/ 2350241&mode=nested&tid=106
I have a windows version of RealPlayer installed which comes with no spyware, no annoying crap in the system tray and it only pops up when I try and play a RealPlayer clip.
If you people cant set it up to do the same please stop posting on a discussion board for geeks as you are obviously an idiot.
I would tell you what I did to get to this state, but the steps involved were so trivial I did not commit them to memory.
On another note, isnt RealPlayer (Helixplayer) now partly open source developed with only the latest Real codecs being proprietary.
Have a look round this site to learn more -
http://helixcommunity.org/
I dont read
Most of the people I know who hate real have not used it since version 8.
Yes..there was a time when Real was an EVIL company. BUT..they have done many things since then (ever heard of helix player..you CAN download it for free you know). They've done quite a lot in the open source world as well.
Come on, it's legit to dump on a company for a bad product. But it's been YEARS since the worst of their products that had stuff bundled you didnt want was distributed.
Personally, I don't use real, but their stuff hasn't been horribly bad since the days when they were trying to trick you into installing stuff (which now they don't do).
Hating real has become de-facto religion for some.
Ahh, gotcha. That parent post was worded oddly. I thought the Real software would start showing up in FireFox downloads from mozilla.org.... but it's the other way around. Moreover, from the looks of it, I'm not the only one who thought that.
So, really, this isn't very "ewww" after all.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I wonder since when Real Player got so bloated that whole FireFox can be neatly tucked into distribution without users noticing it :)
Hyperom.com
I don't know about you, but I don't subscribe to either of these.
I consider myself part of the Open Source community because I both use Open Source, and from time to time I've also written and released my own Open Source. I don't particularly care about spreading the philosophy (although I'm happy to explain it to people), and I don't feel the need to make people use it (although I'm happy to help them if they want to, within reason).
Personally I like and use Open Source software because in the ways that I like using software, I find it to be of superior quality and better suited to my needs for a variety of reasons. Running campaigns and trying to convert people to new philosophies has nothing to do with it.
Individual people or organisations within the open source community might have goals, but I don't think it's a serious problem if different groups disagree. I'm also not sure if it's meaningful to claim that people should be aiming for a goal just because they're involved in open source. If anything, perhaps one issue that could be addressed is how to better identify different interest groups without trying to bundle them all into the "Open Source Software Community" basket.
I think the first thing that comes to mind is what people will start to think about Firefox. Sure, its userbase might be strengthened, but we are living in an age of browser spamming.
What do I mean by "browser spamming"? For example, let's say you install a popular piece of software like AOL. I have a laptop running Windows XP, and I also do not have any commercial antivirus of my own, so I installed AOL because my dad has an accoutn with them and from that I am able to get free McAfee service. AOL came bundled with "AOL browser." It's merely an IE frontend with a shinier interface and tabs. Also, try installing Realplayer for Windows--you can hardly load the damn thing without their little media browser coming up, loading all sorts of Real sponsored web pages. Is it possible for me to go anywhere or do anything without escaping some kind of little browser getting in my business?
Soon people will download Realplayer, an ad-supported shareware package, and they'll have Firefox. They'll begin to regard Firefox as the same sort of strings-attached freeware junk that Real is. Don't get me wrong--I think Realplayer is actually a very nice media player, but my beef against it is all the peripheral crap that comes with it and the intentionally-limited features.
It's important that people understand what Firefox truly is--Free software with a capital "F". They also need to understand that it comes from the Mozilla Foundation, not Real Networks. :-/
Personally I don't use products from Real (I haven't even looked at them for several years), however, they are popular.
People keep saying "Real sucks", well a hell of a lot of people use it/download it, so there are a lot more people out there who like Real. And all these people are now going to have a chance to try out Firefox.
Why does Firefox need to push its market share? More market share means more money for one (through the sponsored search), and more money *hopefully* translates into a better product, and more adverting/deals like this.
Right now, a lot of websites simply *arn't* Firefox friendly, if market share hit 35%, could these websites afford to ignore Firefox any more? As a Firefox user this is important to me...
Finally, the more market share Firefox takes, the better MS will have to make IE, and in turn the better Firefox will become.. Why release a product for something like web browsing if you only want a small market share?... Firefox isn't "A tool for geeks", it's something to make the web expierence better - and it certainly does (I know no mention of Opera and others in this post, they have their place, especially Opera, but Firefox is in the best position to gain market share right now it seems)
I've never seen so many trolls in my life!
Actually Real plays it clean with the Linux version of the software - they don't sneak spyware in with the product, they don't try to take over your configuration, they don't hide checked items down in the out-of-site areas of picklists where all the visible items are checked. Why? Because they know that Linux users generally have at least half a clue WILL NOT tolerate that sneaky crap.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The latest QuickTime formats are H.264/MPEG-4 AVC for video and AAC for audio. Open source decoders exist for both. In fact, last year, ffmpeg was bragging that they could play QuickTime 7 videos on Windows before QuickTime could.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
sentences between the subject header and the message body. Way to communicate effectively!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I was actually shocked after installing when, after restarting... I din't get some sort of sneaky update scheduler running.
I don't care about Real's "bad reputation", I just don't like having to make sure to uncheck the "Install this super app!" checkboxes whenever downloading software. If I had occasion to download Real Player, I don't want to have to make sure to uncheck the "Download Firefox" checkbox. And the same goes for all other bundled software. It's bad enough that Google Toolbar comes bundled with everything alread (as an opt-out checkbox); I don't like Google Toolbar, have no need for it, and don't like having it shoved down my throat. I wouldn't like Firefox shoved down my throat either.
(btw, I use Opera, FF, and IE7 interchangably, just whatever I feel like using at the time; I don't care about the browser war stuff.)
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
yeah sure, boycotting the only opensource software in the world that has a bit of success (with Openoffice) is the way to go ! Let's all promote Opera ! Let's make sure that the web becomes what it used to be ! A windows only place with more and more sites that are unaccessible to othe OSes. Lets shoot ourselves in the foot !
With this logic, Firefox shouldn't even be available for Windows, Microsoft is no better than Real about the end-user privacy and rights...
"Techie" is a broad term. Just because I'm an EE and work as a programmer, it doesn't mean that I continuously track the changes in each revision of every single shitty program on the planet.
And RealPlayer in particular is one thing I don't give a fuck about anymore anyway. It's not only that it's annoyed me too much with their shitty spyware back then, it's that I don't really have an incentive to bother with it anymore anyway. Did it change its ways? I dunno. Do I give enough of a fuck to check out? Nope. The vast majority of the media files on the net these days are in DivX, WMV and QuickTime format. In that order.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Exactly what kind of popularity are we talking about? It's a format that rose to prominence just on the back of some deals with porn sites, and which in the last years has steadily been dumped by everyone _including_ those porn sites. Other than a couple of minor older sites, have you even _seen_ a .rm file on the net lately? Almost everything these days is WMV, DivX and QT.
.rm files. Not when it's a fringe heading steadily towards extinction.
So, really, what popularity? I'll call a format or player popular when it's the format you run into on every other site. When youtube, google, and even a neighbour's vacation videos are
Or, oh, you mean the "2 million downloads a day" boast? Note that they don't say 2 million _RealPlayer_ downloads a day. They most likely include everything else downloaded from their servers, including music from their subscription service, short video clips that noone wants and everyone makes their player download automatically at startup, patches, updates, programs like Firefox, etc. I'd be thoroughly surprised if even 1/10 of those were actually RealPlayer downloads.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.