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Re: [ARSCLIST] RealNetworks -- a horrid format from a horrible company
Funny.I have never had any such problems with
Real,since I switched to a mac OS.Much of the internet
radio I listen to,is only avaliable in Real
format,which did not come on my computer.After I
booted it up,the first time,I went to the Real
site,and downloaded thier free mac version ,with no
difficulty.My download time,was under two minutes.You
may have a bad,or slow internet connection.I have
never heard of this process of unselecting player
versions,either,maybe others have.This sounds like a
two year old,or older version of the Real site.I'm
puzzled.
Now if you want to talk about hideous formats,my
nominee goes to Flash,used by YouTube,and Google
Video,with Winamp as a close second.
Roger Kulp
--- Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> OK, now it's time for a short rant, one user's
> viewpoint. Archivists, please avoid using this awful
>
> format for your public-available content.
>
> My favorite over-Internet radio show, Riverwalk
> Jazz, had a bonus thing -- excerpts from a 1973 WRVR
> interview with John Hammond:
> http://tinyurl.com/yd6s2e
>
> Unfortunately, no playback options except RealAudio.
> I smelled trouble immediately. Real player
> launches and
> demands to be updated. No playing the clips unless
> it updates. OK, sigh, now I know there's trouble
> coming.
>
> Download takes 5 minutes. Install takes another 5
> minutes. Then the post-install process, where Real
> shows itself as the most goniff-y, classless company
> out there. I think all websites should be
> strong told by their users and patrons not to use
> this format. I always send messages to webmasters
> because I feel that Real is truly
> a horrible company.
>
> You have to UNSELECT all the formats you don't want
> Real to take over. Instead of telling it what to
> do, you have to take 5-10 minutes of CAREFULLY
> telling it what NOT to do, or you'll find that Real
> takes over all audio and video formats -- and throws
> its bloated player and ads all over your
> computer. Plus, you have to go into buried menus to
> turn off auto-update, and if you don't register
> it under a fake e-mail, they will spam you whether
> you uncheck all the spam options or not. HATEFUL!
>
> Oh, and they also default select the pay-to-use
> player on the install, so if you don't pay attention
>
> they'll be asking for credit card info. Yeah, over
> my dead body! And these goniffs sued Microsoft
> over alleged "monopoly" issues! At least Microsoft
> provides a player as part of the OS on 95% of
> desktops, not as some bloated, ad-laden, invasive,
> spamming option.
>
> I sent a very strong e-mail to my friends at
> Riverwalk about using this format. Real should be
> driven out of business or forced to change their
> spamming/invasive/toxicware ways.
>
> By the way, Quicktime is the same kind of setup --
> you have to carefully go thru several steps or it
> will also take over all your media formats. Big
> strike against Apple on that. Also, Quicktime used
> to be toxic to some Windows computers, although
> that's improved in recent versions. But I wouldn't
> have Quicktime on any of my computers if it wasn't
> required for iTunes.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
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