"States Say Microsoft Planned Media Player Coup"

[Refalm]

Hey guys, watch this:
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=internetnews&StoryID=914062

[preacher]

To tell you the truth, the people over at real media are as bad as the people at MS. They have spyware included in their software that sends back everything you do with it. When you install real player, it fores all media of any type to be played on it by default. Basically, everything you hate about Windows Media Player, it has too. Hopefully neither MS nor Real will win this battle.

[Refalm]

quote:ThePreacher: Basically, everything you hate about Windows Media Player, it has too.

Uhm dude, you have Real Media files on your website  :confused:

[Kintaro]

Who cares what info they get... Personally i like Real Media because they support Linux!

What are they going to do with the info for registration, and you can always fill in bullshit!

With it i can view Shockwave Flash, and ect in Linux! Anyway, Windows Media Player is crap!
If you prefer it over Quicktime and Winamp or Realplayer/Winamp... well your MAD

Micosoft sends info about you behind your back you dont have to register RealPlayer. For fuck sake just because a program asks you about some details, doesnt make it spyware.
If it sends information about you, ect without informing you then it is Spyware. Otherwise i geuss my Website is spyware because it has a poll and this site is because it asks for your email address. With your assosiation of Spyware i guess everything is well... Spyware!

[Calum]

realplayer sends packets home to real.com whether you fill in the details or not, about what media is being played. i would be happier if somebody would come up with open source replacements for realplayer, quicktime (which isn't even compiled for linux), windows media player and flash.
maybe these projects are under way, i don't know.

[Ctrl Alt Del 123]

http://computerbytesman.com/privacy/realjb.htm

Real Player is WORSE than WMP. Atleast with WMP, you can turn off it from phoning home, and as for the phoning home when watching DVD's? It's completely anonymous. http://computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.htm

[Vincent]

So far I think MS has done a good job with WMP... except for the fact that only XP received the WMP8 upgrade. RealPlayer I must say is horrible... RealPlayer 8 was loaded up on more ads than a porn site and RealONE integrates itself into the OS, hides itself from the program manager and delivers daily spam popups down by the taskbar even when it's supposedly not running. As far as media players go, WMP and QuickTime are the only two I'll touch... most sites have their media in QT and WM anyway.

[voidmain]

RealPlayer doesn't do any of that under Linux. And how can it spam you under Windows if you don't give them your email address? Whenever some app asks for my email address I tell it "[email protected]".

[ May 20, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Vincent]

RealONE has a built-in notification system used show balloon-style popups near the taskbar, it was originally intended to provide notification of RealONE updates but it is also used to display links to their sponser's garbage. In other words, it hides itself from the OS and stays in constnat communication with the RealONE servers in order to obtain those links and updates.

[Ctrl Alt Del 123]

I just deleted the Notification service to shut the little fukker up.

[preacher]

quote: hm dude, you have Real Media files on your website  

Indeed I do use real player 8.0 for linux, as there really isnt much alternative. Besides, Im a Southpark fanatic and 90% of the episodes out there are either in real media format, or the microsoft format. Just because I use their product doesnt mean I condone their actions or business practices. Oh, and thank you for visiting my website.

[Kintaro]

quote:Originally posted by Vincent:
So far I think MS has done a good job with WMP... except for the fact that only XP received the WMP8 upgrade. RealPlayer I must say is horrible... RealPlayer 8 was loaded up on more ads than a porn site and RealONE integrates itself into the OS, hides itself from the program manager and delivers daily spam popups down by the taskbar even when it's supposedly not running. As far as media players go, WMP and QuickTime are the only two I'll touch... most sites have their media in QT and WM anyway.

You like Windows media player, you should see The Fan Club! Its full of nutcases like you!

[Calum]

well i still think it would be nice if there were open source gnu tools for easily manipulating the likes of wma, wmv, rm, ram, ra file types and so on. However good realplayer for linux is (and i have tried it briefly, it was OK), it is proprietary. I don't like realmedia and i'd rather not use their product. same with M$.

[Nobber]

Would anyone dare develop tools (open source or otherwise) for downloading or manipulating RealAudio/Video streams? Real is prepared to use the DMCA against anyone who tries.

(Very nifty program, actually, is StreamboxVCR. Shame it's Windows only.)

[foobar]

quote:Originally posted by ThePreacher:


Just because I use their product doesnt mean I condone their actions or business practices.

Yup, totally agree. I still can't get to compile my ltmodem.o files to get my modem working under linux, so i have to use winblows (which just crashed before i got here)