Underhandism is now the norm for big programming?

[Michael]

Just clicked a RealPlayer link for the first time on a new system and
Spybot's Teatimer caught it trying to add itself to system startup. Then
sometime after on reconnection to the internet Zone Alarm caught RealPlayer
trying to reconnect though I was not using it and had not for an hour. I
looked in Task Manager and there were three instances of realevent.exe
running but no evidence of them in the systray. It now seems to be accepted
practice for even 'reputable' big programmers to be as sly and surreptitious
as they see fit. If RealPlayer thought it was of such value that it run at
startup why did it not use a popup and ask me if i wanted it there, and when
it wanted to reconnect for its own reasons and not mine why not popup and
ask me. The reason it did not is because I would have said no and it knew
that and wanted to do as it pleased regardless. Same as running in the
background without using a systray icon. The present ethics of programming
seem to be if the user is not familiar enough with his system to search out
and stop such things then the programmer has every right to crowd his system
and his bandwidth with processes that he neither knows about or requires.
This is malware by another name.

 

[David Qunt]

as they see fit. If RealPlayer thought it was of such value that it
run at

I agree. real are well known for this type of behaviour, and have been for
years. Consequently, I avoid real products like the plague.

I recommend that you download realaternative. And while we're at it,
quicktimealternative.


--
*********************************

David Qunt

****************************************************

 

[GTS]

David,

I had tried Real Alternative and found it can play saved real audio files
fine but would not work for streaming audio. I dislike Real Player too but
use for only that reason. Do you know if there's any way to make RA work
for streaming?

--

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Just clicked a RealPlayer link for the first time on a new system and
Spybot's Teatimer caught it trying to add itself to system startup.
Then sometime after on reconnection to the internet Zone Alarm caught
RealPlayer trying to reconnect though I was not using it and had not
for an hour. I looked in Task Manager and there were three instances
of realevent.exe running but no evidence of them in the systray. It
now seems to be accepted practice for even 'reputable' big
programmers to be as sly and surreptitious as they see fit. If
RealPlayer thought it was of such value that it run at startup why
did it not use a popup and ask me if i wanted it there, and when it
wanted to reconnect for its own reasons and not mine why not popup
and ask me. The reason it did not is because I would have said no and
it knew that and wanted to do as it pleased regardless. Same as
running in the background without using a systray icon. The present
ethics of programming seem to be if the user is not familiar enough
with his system to search out and stop such things then the
programmer has every right to crowd his system and his bandwidth with
processes that he neither knows about or requires. This is malware by
another name.

Real (Player) and Netscape are the two worst commercially accepted Internet
applications that practice what you preach. Have been for a while.
Surprised you haven't noticed this before now. =)

Real Alternative..
Mozilla Firefox..
Quicktime Alternative..

All great replacements for the offenders I dislike the most.

 

[David Qunt]

David,

I had tried Real Alternative and found it can play saved real audio
files
fine but would not work for streaming audio. I dislike Real Player
too but use for only that reason. Do you know if there's any way to
make RA work for streaming?

Hmm, streaming works fine for me here. I am able to watch webcasts
perfectly. Dom't know why it would be different for you.


--
*********************************

David Qunt

****************************************************

 

[GTS]

Hmm, streaming works fine for me here. I am able to watch webcasts
perfectly. Dom't know why it would be different for you.

Thanks. I'll have to give it another shot then.
--

 

[Guest]

Sounds like you need to check the Preferences. It will assign itself as your default player and also will start up when you boot as a default. Just change the Preferences to have it not start on booting and change any other default settings that you don't like.