[JoJo Gunn]

Winamp 2.8 ain't bad, if you tell it up front you don't have an internet connection. (I'm not one to use media players on the web anyway).

Real Player is something else again. I learned the first time I tried it how devious those *******'s were, when during an install dialog box there were plenty of unchecked items, but only if you scrolled down did you see 3 or 4 boxes pre-checked giving authorization to phone home. Why wasn't that up front?

What also ticks me off is that over here PBS, (the "educational" organization that gets too much of our tax dollars), forces people to use that garbageware if they want to access anything.

[Darksheare]

You can tell it to "GOMF" (get outta my face) in it's settings, but you have to hunt the specific preference settings down.
Like it's internet DBBA database setting..
I gutted that thing when I found it.
Also told it not to report usage stats.