# Alternatives to RealOne Player

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-realone-player/150365>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 23, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-realone-player/150365 "2003-01-23T03:44:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-realone-player/150365/1 "2003-01-23T03:44:15Z")

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Are there any programs(preferably free) out there that can play real media files besides RealOne Player? The reason I am asking this is that Real Player is full of junk and spyware, and I have some videos in .rm format that I really want to see.

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**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-realone-player/150365/2 "2003-01-23T03:57:26Z")

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Ewe, Real.

Unfortunately, Real are fairly aggressive in hunting down and assassina- er, stoping people from developing software that plays RM files. There WAS a freeware program, though I forget its name, that did this, and it was pretty publicized when Real shut it down.

As for what is out there right now, I’ve not heard of anything in a while, but that may just be my ignorance.

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**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-realone-player/150365/3 "2003-01-23T04:45:05Z")

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I reinstalled realplayer a couple of days ago. As long as you’re VERY careful during the install process no spyware, junk, or crap goes on your computer (I’m very rigorous about scanning for it).

They don’t make it easy but it is possible to strip it down into behaving like quicktime for rm files.

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**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-realone-player/150365/4 "2003-01-23T05:15:40Z")

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QuickTime ain’t no peach itself, but it isn’t a hundredth the terror of RealPlayer/RealOne, mainly because it doesn’t take the spyware step and has clearer install options.

One trick with Real\* installers is that when you are going through the setup/registration bit where they ask you what spam subscripti- er, content- you want, they frequently have a box about 4 rows high with a small scroll bar… most people just see the unchecked boxes and hit “next,” but some of them have checked boxes only visible by scolling the window down. Sick bastards.