Toms View of the World

I’ve just been over to Real.com to attempt to download their “free” RealPlayer.

It appears that the only obvious way to download it includes a 14 day trial for their RealMusic service, for which I have to supply my credit card details.

I don’t want their music service, I don’t want a free trial of it, and I certainly don’t want to give credit card details to obtain their free media player, just so I can watch a few video clips on the BBC Website.

Even if you find the fairly well hidden link to “RealPlayer” - you still shouldn’t click the first big yellow “Download Now” button - that’ll download “Player Plus” - which again you have to pay for.

Even when you’re installing the Free player, it’ll try to push some of the “paid” features to you - now some people probably find these valuable. I don’t. Also make sure you deselect the “desktop shortcut for Free Games and Music” from the installation options.

Even then when I run it it tries to get me to register my email address, location, age, gender, and what Desktop Messages I want to recieve (none of them) then it installs a tray area icon I didn’t ask for so I can be updated! Note “cancelling” the registration accepts the defaults which equate to “bombard me with crap via your system tray app”. I then have to go into the options of the notifier to remove it.