With a free, really nice and easy to use firewall like Zone Alarm, you get almost absolute control on your software connections, and therefore detect and contain (ad||spy)ware.
A simple popup appears when a soft connects to or is being connected to through your LAN or the Internet. All you have to do is click "Yes" or "No" and you even get a checkbox to tell ZoneAlarm you want this to become a rule.
You then have the possibility to browse through the rule list whenever you want or nedd to.
Real Player is one of a connecter, but WMP is one too.
While it can be usefull when the soft automaticly downloads necessary codecs, it is spyware when it sends your playlist, usage stats, etc.
And for the MIME part of the problem, I must agree that RealOne is one of the most annoying to configure, but a lot of programs are (I hate QuickTime for that).
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Expect France to vote "Yes" on this one !
With a free, really nice and easy to use firewall like Zone Alarm, you get almost absolute control on your software connections, and therefore detect and contain (ad||spy)ware.
A simple popup appears when a soft connects to or is being connected to through your LAN or the Internet. All you have to do is click "Yes" or "No" and you even get a checkbox to tell ZoneAlarm you want this to become a rule.
You then have the possibility to browse through the rule list whenever you want or nedd to.
Real Player is one of a connecter, but WMP is one too.
While it can be usefull when the soft automaticly downloads necessary codecs, it is spyware when it sends your playlist, usage stats, etc.
And for the MIME part of the problem, I must agree that RealOne is one of the most annoying to configure, but a lot of programs are (I hate QuickTime for that).
Simply beacause you don't expect the same level of absolute compatibility from the biggest company on Earth.
Will also end up with guy suing you with proof of you staring at their wife's ass =) I CAN wait for it to happen.