04/05/2004: 
Technologica
Pickup & Dropoff: Car Talk Switches Back To Real Player
from Car Talk via /.
perhaps some of you will remember when we covered Car Talk dropping Real Player as its streaming media client. According to Tom & Ray, Real Player is again the streaming media format for one of my favorite public radio shows. reasons for the switch(back):
The bottom line is that we believe they've made a serious and successful attempt to address those things that our listeners complained about most. We've been impressed by their responsiveness.I still don't really trust real, but my OEM version doesn't really bother me. I configured it to shut up and stay out of my task bar. But I know the downloaded version on santo26's OSX machine is a bit intrusive. For those for whom Real is still a biznatch, /. posters seem to recommend Real Alternative which looks to be a reverse engineered product to delete all the features that made Real Player annoyware.
On the issue of the "hidden" free player, they've agreed to provide a direct link from Car Talk to a clear, uncluttered, free player download page. On the issue of pop ups, they tell us they're gone.
