I’ve had to get this off my chest for some time.
Real Player and all of it’s spyware permutations must go. Real format is junk and doesn’t have half the quality of MP3.
I cannot understand the insistance of web sites to use music clips in Real format. There are free wave to MP3 converters out there that are just as easy to use and people don’t have to put up with Real’s insistance on taking ownership of your PC and downloading tons of garbage junk in addition to a simple player.
Whew.
I saw just the other day that some sites that sell CD’s and used to only offer clips in Real now offer both Real and MP3.
Real is on the way out.
Look for MP3 to remain the mainstream and Ogg to slowly but steadily grow more important.
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
Interesting you mention Ogg. I just heard about that for the first time last week on a computer game site. I guess I better check into it.
I hate real player!
/Peter
Can’t say I love it much, either. Among other things, I use it to play CDs in one drive while working on my desktop PC. The skips and pops are godawful. I just assumed it was that there were too many demands on the PC, but with 1.4GB that is patently ludicrous.
Amen Geek. Some of the sound clips I get only play that way. My computer came with Itunes, which works so much better but I am not sure how a PC person can send me a sound file that will so play.
I’ve got itunes here, too, Weeks. Just have them send you the mp3 file (or you can just download any mp3) and you’re in business. 
Jef
On 2003-02-27 09:06, geek4music wrote:
I’ve had to get this off my chest for some time.Real Player and all of it’s spyware permutations must go. Real format is junk and doesn’t have half the quality of MP3.
Whew.
Amen, brother, Realplayer is awful. It’s like the ultimate unwelcome houseguest, it sits around your computer leaving crumbs, belching, crashing occasionally and keeping you from doing what you really want. I just closed rnathchk using the Close Program function and guess what! It’ll be back in a little while all by itself (and yes I fixed my startup file)! I hate seeing that Real link on a website.
[ This Message was edited by: Rando7 on 2003-02-27 16:30 ]
I’m overwhelmed at the number of folks who agree.
I noticed the files on the tunes site are MP3. What a relief.
One plus of my computer crashing several months ago is the fact that all evidence of Real player and Real Download is gone.
I will never download it agian!
I do miss the little dancing sheep on real jukebox… oh well.
Laura
Spybot can remove the spyware from Real and leave your system clean. I used ADaware for years, but spybot is even better. It is still free and you can download it from Cnet.com.
I recently discovered a great freeware app called Media](http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc.php%22%3EMedia) Player Classic, which is very similar to Windows Media Player v6.
There are many added features and more supported file formats though, one of which is Real Media.
You’ll need the Real Media codec though, and I’ll be happy to provide a download location for interested people who can’t find a copy on their own.
I have several downloaded Real Media files that I play quite frequently, and to be able to do so without installing Real Player (or RealOne as it’s now called) is a wonderful thing.
I dunno. It works OK on my Mac and sounds a little better than Quicktime. No belches or any of the strange things people mentioned.
Ugly face, though. Real ugly. Ha Ha Ha.
RealPlayer is the worst! Try UltraPlayer, it lets you still listen to Real Audio, but thankfully without RealPlayer.
Well I downloaded and ran Spybot and Ultraplayer, also deleted Real Player. So far so good. Thanks to everybody for the tips.
Another hint about using Spybot – install the host file. It stops your browser from downloading ads from most ad servers. What it does is redirect the address for the adserver back to your computer. Instead of downloading the ad, you get an action cancelled message in the space. If you have a dial up connection you save the time and bandwidth it takes to download the ad.