Real Alternative hits 2.0 milestone with a quiet update

Real Alternative is an awesome little Windows utility that lets you watch RealVideo and listen to RealAudio files without installing RealPlayer. Although RealPlayer has come a long way in recent years, many people still find it cumbersome and awkward to use.

Real Alternative installs the codecs you need to access much of the content available in RealPlayer using a light weight media player called Media Player Classic. There are also plugins for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome that let you interact with RealMedia content from your browser.

The application hit version 2.0 recently, but despite the rather monumental name, it looks like the update brings a handful of relatively minor updates. Probably the most significant change is that the browser plugin now works in Internet Explorer 8. The versions of Media Player Clasice and the RealMedia components have also been updated. But I figured the anniversary was a good time to point out three things:

1. Real Alternative is kind of awesome.
2. It's been chugging along quietly for years.
3. Flash has all-but replaced RealMedia as the default media platform for the web.

That last point was driven home when I installed Real Alternative 2.0 today to test it out. It took me a good 10 minutes to find a web site that actually streamed audio or video in RealMedia. A few years ago, it would have been hard to find a site using any other media format.

Tags: media-player-classic, real-alternative, real-alternative-2.0