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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...
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.
...that Firefox is being bundled with Real's stuff, not the other way around.
Idiots.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
I use RealPlayer as Windows Media Player replacement since around 2 years ago and what I can tell is that your description of RP seems to be about a totally different software. Worse than a virus?! What about some facts that support what you are saying?
RealNetworks did a lot of shit in the past, true, but that doesn't mean they will always keep doing it. That's the same as saying that someone who was convicted by a crime will always behave as a criminal.
It really bothers me that most people who bash Real latest software do so without even trying the thing.
Are you sure you're not using Real Alternative? I can't fathom your comment because RealPlayer is the most ad-ridden, cluttered useless interface I've ever seen in my life. The first time I ran it I almost couldn't figure which window had the video. And needless to say it was the last time.
OTOH Real Alternative is a WMP embed (there's also a QT one) which uses WMP 6.1 and no ads.
This is Slashdot, hating Real Player and accuse them of spying is a fashion. :)
You shouldn't bother replying. This is easy karma. Whatever they accomplish like staying alive against MS empire, it won't change. Someone will post "Real is a virus/spyware" crap and get +5 insightful.
Yea, it is spyware etc etc. I just feel sorry for Real Networks trying to do many favours to OSS community such as Helix Player along with its source, winning the portable multimedia market so Microsoft Media Division won't start another monopoly, giving them hell in EU courts resulting removal of windows media player installed by default to windows and so on.
OK, they will accuse me (!) for working at Real or getting paid to post comments again... I didn't see who submitted it but I really hope it is not a Helix coder or someone involved with Real Networks. You really need dozens of more "spyware" accusations from this user profile?!
You think someone will come up and ask if Gecko rendering engine will be bundled to Real Player instead of MSHTML linking? Or will Real Networks help Mozilla folks with their amazing portable/device experience and help ship a really working portable Gecko?
Real Networks, if you want to see an appreciating community, check OS X downnload feedback, we are all happy with what you offer for years and not abandoning us like some "non spyware" monopolists did.
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.
That's the problem right there. RealPlayer is not so much like the old RealOne Player or any of their other failures. They created a bad name for themselves by being overly intrusive. But they don't deserve that rep so much now.
They also were the first format to optimize for low bandwidth, which created a big problem as far as how their format in general appeared when most RealMedia videos were crappy quality.
That said, I'd prefer everyone used H.264 MPEG-4 for streaming video. It's good quality per bit at all bitrates, it works in several players, and it's easy to hint for streaming and drop into Darwin Streaming Server.
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. :-/
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
No, I'm not using Real Alternative, it's the real thing.
This is how it looks when I open a music file. See? Pretty simple, opens really fast, doesn't get in the way, good eye-candy, no ads.
This is how it looks in full-mode, with media library open. It is bit slow to open in my computer (PIII 1GHz), but that is also because of the large amount of music files in the DB. Anyway, I only use it when I specifically want to and that's not often. Again, I can't say much against it.
When I open a video, it looks the same way as when I open a music file, except it also shows... the video. All in the same window and the same I said before.
Actually, for those concerned with privacy, Real Player gives easy access to privacy control options. Just check the options screen.
There is also something called message center. I'm not sure what it is, because I turned it off right after install, but I guess those ads and pop-ups you talk about come through here. However, it is kids play to deactivate it. Just click on the option to do so.
I understand all the rage against Real, I shared it too when using the old players, but today it is way better. Not perfect, but much better. Ok, it might not come optimized for privacy, but with little effort you can do it. Really little effort, considering that, as it plays most media formats, you only have to configure one player. This is specially good with quicktime formats, because it also gives the benefit of full-screen video.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
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.