That's a very antagonistic and nieve answer, imo.

I'm there with you: I hated how the old Realplayer did all sorts of shady stuff.

But to say that there is no good answer, there is no 'right' answer, there is no excuse...how can a software company right the wrongs of their old versions without releasing new ones?

New upgrades, code fixes, architectures and installation packages...these things can't be reversed on versions that are years old.

This comment seems very troll-like. The users made it known that t

Err.. so what would you suggest? How is a company expected to fix problems in it's software without releasing a new version? Real's made some serious mistakes in the past, but they seem to be making an honest effort to do the right thing now, or at least as much as they can without giving away all of their IP. Thanks to real, there's now a 100% open source video and audio streaming server and client, using Helix and OGG codecs. Real is also the only major streaming solution with Windows, Mac and Linux c

You're asking a reasonable question, but the flip side to your question is, how do you figure out when a company is changing for the better? And the answer is, you ask around. There's enough people out there that either a) have throwaway systems that they're happy to install test software on, or b) run secure enough systems that they're confident they can handle any attempt Real might make to "take over" the system. (As a Debian user and Debian developer, I'm in the latter camp.)

I've been Real-free for