Real Player 8 basic is said to be freeware. So is it any good? Does it work okay? Anybody using it, please comment.

I use to all the time. I find no problems with it. However, I would recommend Win 98 or Win ME with 64MB of ram to fully enjoy it.

It depends on what for. Personally I only use Real Player for things that require real player. It's one of those things you must have in the tool box. But personally I like Winamp and Windows Media Player 7 (yeah I know it runs like a dog being bloatware and all of that - but I like it) So pick your audio tool for the job at hand. Raa

Good Question! I absolutely hated it because it came in and invaded all areas of my computer ,changed many settings and media players that worked before were knocked out. Also , clips that worked before didn't after. I posted the same query to this forum at one point and the response was mostly it works but make sure you use custom install. My basic opinion of "Real Player" is that it sucks and I don't understand why so many sites ask for it . My advice - Be careful! I got rid of all the blue ees and am happier for it. Can't wait for the next comments. Blazer

RealPlayer 8 is a pig - it takes p too much HD space and memory, and i steals all ur file associations. But the majority of sreaming on the net is RealMedia, so i guess its just a necessary evil.

I was getting all sorts of BSOD's after I installed it! I finally dumped it and no more probs! its a real pain in the ass if you ask me!

For me, RealPlayer=Real Problems. I first installed the beta version, which seemed to work perfectly on my system. Then, when I upgraded to the "perfected" version, the problems began. First of all, I noticed that when playing a video file, my PC would freeze from time to time, and I would have to reboot--this NEVER happened with the beta version. It also seemed--though I am not sure about this--that the sound quality was not as good. Sometimes, the sound would drop out and come up again slightly garbled. (This happened on a number of files from different sites.) Finally, one day I clicked on a *.wav file and was told to download a plugin to play the file, which I did. I was told the plugin was successfully installed, clicked on the file and... "REAL PLAYER HAS CAUSED A GENERAL ERROR, PLEASE REFER TO ...." I went to the RealPlayer web site and was told that no help existed for this type of problem, but if I wanted to, I could contact their support technicians, etc. etc. etc. I then tried playing a standard RealPlayer sound file and was told: "REAL PLAYER HAS CAUSED A GENERAL ERROR, PLEASE REFER TO ...." I uninstalled RealPlayer--that was about six months ago--and have seen no need to reinstall it.