Techie Board - what and why

PurestLight

Realplayer is a horrible piece of spyware

I am utterly unaware that Real Player is spyware!! Are you sure? I have SpyBot installed and before I installed this particular piece of software, I ran others and none threw up Real as Spyware. As far as Im concernedrealPlayer/Arcade is just a music player (free if basic) and Arcade is a very good games host. I have had dealings with them in the past and they appear completely on the level. I would be interested to know the basis for your negativity

Ra

I am utterly unaware that Real Player is spyware!! Are you sure? I have SpyBot installed and before I installed this particular piece of software, I ran others and none threw up Real as Spyware.  As far as Im concernedrealPlayer/Arcade is just a music player (free if basic) and Arcade is a very good games host.  I have had dealings with them in the past and they appear completely on the level.  I would be interested to know the basis for your negativity

well....there is a version of Realplayer that is spyware free, but the most common version use it...

::http://simplythebest.net/info/spyware/realplayer_spyware.html

::http://www.aluminumstudios.com/spyware/

which contains the quote

"Realnetworks practically invented spyware. They were sued for their privacy violations. They were sued again. Their spying drew the attention of the FTC. By now, the activities of RealDownload are well-known, as are those of RealJukebox. Would you trust a company with this record?"

there's more but you get the idea

PurestLight

127.0.0.1 real.com
127.0.0.1 home.real.com
127.0.0.1 realmedia.com

Thanks for the information Ra. I had no idea! The IP address that I have copied above has often been thrown up by Norton firewall as attacking my computer. Upon investigation, it turns out that this is an address on MY network (I don't have one); could it be Real attacking? Im not very 'up' on this sort of stuff, I would appreciate your opinion. Thanks for your help here

Ra

127.0.0.1 real.com
127.0.0.1 home.real.com
127.0.0.1 realmedia.com

Thanks for the information Ra. I had no idea!  The IP address that I have copied above has often been thrown up by Norton firewall as attacking my computer. Upon investigation, it turns out that this is an address on MY network (I don't have one); could it be Real attacking?  Im not very 'up' on this sort of stuff, I would appreciate your opinion.  Thanks for your help here  

i think it's probably Real trying to extract info about how you've been using their programes. Id like to point out that Real arent 'attacking' your PC as such - they're trying to build up data about you.

Personally though, i steer well clear of them. There is a free program doing the rounds that play realmedia files with none of this spyware rubbish, but the name of it escapes me..

Fran

Ra, that's worse than the "Diary of a money saving expert 2b continued" thread, at least there you can invent what happens next! Have you remembered what it is?

budgetflyer

I dont really think it matters what "real" are collecting if you are doing nothing wrong.
Its only data after all, its not like they are stealing your CC details or anything to rob you later
Another one that collects data(far more than REAL) is GOOGLE .Every search is logged so your browsing habits are on record!

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

you need to read the whole article to get it

terrierlady

:-[ here i go again now on broadband of a sorts tiscali, when i try to log on it states error 650 not every time just most of it. any ideas why. could it be a faulty modem/

scheming_gypsy

got a feeling it's been answered already for you

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59264&highlight=650

terrierlady

not me but same problem looks like tiscali are using timeout due to heavy demand. i thought it could be a problem with doggy modem but reading all the complaints perhaps not.

scheming_gypsy

nah, sounds like it could just be a temporary problem. If it's not you are you in the same area? midlands ?