RealPlayer is so ubiquitous that the really is no getting away from it even though it's widely criticized as being too commercial and too bloated. However, you can't avoid the fact that it's an essential piece of software if you're surfing the internet regularly.

It is indeed bloated, intrusive but RealPlayer has a lot of functionality - it can do a hell of a lot from streaming radio and video to burning CD's but it's often slow and cumbersome. One of the most annoying aspects is that it takes simply ages to start whether streaming a clip or just opening a standalone video file. This is because all of the hundreds of extensions and plugins that come preinstalled with it. There are also too many clicks and mouse movements required just to switch to a full-screen playback mode when viewing a clip on a web page.

In saying this, Realplayer isn't bad at all. It's comparable to Windows Media Player 10 as they both have some impressive ways of organizing your music and for me the best feature is the CD burner which is one of the easiest burners I've ever used.

Like it or loathe it, as proprietors of the Real Networks codecs, RealPlayer is here to stay for a long time to come