At least that freeware doesn't go around deleting my Ad-aware and infecting my whole system with spyware/adware......

Nice to know people will take cheap shots at other software which doesn't alienate the rest of the community....

Good point. That's why I use RadLight 4 freeware version I do not like ads either ... but I can stand them as I understand their purpose ... or I purchase the software. That simple

I don't see under what light you could say that what you did is not plain wrong, unless you live by the motto "In business and war, everything is valid".



Yes, you do. But don't defend yourselves by insulting people.

Edit: Problem with the quotes.

DAvenger:

Most of this thread goes on about you defending ad-ware (makes me wonder how much of it you got installed on your own system), but I have not seen much discussion about the topic at hand (which is your media player). You say your player has extremely low CPU usage and a very small memory footprint. Well, neither BSPlayer, Zoom Player or Media Player Classic consume so much of my PC's resources that it becomes a problem, so... What I'm basically asking is this, what else does your media player have to offer?

BTW, have you seen much sympathy from users in this thread regarding your approach to ad-ware and the Ad-Aware program? Maybe it's an indication that you could have done things differently? Maybe not have programmed it to remove Ad-Aware? I have heard that some programs refuse to function after you remove their ad-ware component - maybe that could have been the more proper way? (I'm sorry to say that I agree with Dologan's post on this matter - he makes a good point.)

Anyway, can't say I see a lot of complaints regarding your media player - probably means you've done a great job! I have to admit I have not tried it myself, that bit about Ad-Aware being uninstalled kind of "scared" me from trying it (sorry).

I am trying to be as friendly as possible and I didn't insult anyone (not that I know, and btw. HJW doesn't count ... he came here only to promote his player and fileformat). Only person being insulted here am I.



Code your own software, invest lot of time and money into making it best and pay all the bills. If someone (other than your natural competitors and let's say government regulations) prevent you from earning some revenue by the way Lavasoft and the rest did (and still do) only then you will learn what that motto means

Well, BSPlayer is relatively fast because it has it's own Video Renderer (thing RadLight 4 will also have - approx 20% lower CPU usage), Zoom Player ... well, it's kinda heavy and MPC, that one is quite nice (probably the best of these three)

The memory usage of our player is 50% lower than any of these players (well, who cares ... but it's there )

Stability of RadLight 4 is really excellent ... only ONE person managed to "freeze it" and even that was caused by old build of XviD (this issue will be addressed in alpha 4). More features will be added later, we are still alpha 3 So if you are not freaked by all the "spyware" that so many people believe is in RadLight 4 you may even try it sometime



I already wrote that RadLight pro works this way. If you remove it, RadLight won't work. That's way KaZaa and Bearshare (I guess, do it - after we did it)



I understand that. Maybe it's good ... and maybe not ... but it's definitely not evil

Actually, I didn't mean you, but Tetris, whose avid support for RadLight makes me think it's your buddy and co-defender. Sorry if I am mistaken. His post here:


Actually, the sentence I just italicized is quite ironic given the situation... Does then a software have the right to remove another program entirely? "An eye for an eye...?" Heh, I see too many primitive "laws" being applied here...


Programs like ad-aware exist because there is a niche to be filled by them. Many people dislike ads and have wanted to get rid of them, even before ad-aware existed. Some software installs adware without your consent, which somemes does quite more than just "deliver" advertisements. Moreover, this adware still lingers around after the carrier software has been uninstalled. These seem to be enough reasons to dislike adware to me; even if adware has some good things to deliver, as well. Adware just filled this niche and has tried to expand itself by demonizing the software it is made to eliminate. The half-truths they propagate are surely damaging, but so are the half-truths the government and other companies disseminate. The only ethical way to fight this, is by spreading the truth and convincing with arguments, not attacking under the water the software in question. That will only harm your reputation (as you might have realized already) and hence your revenues.

~Dologan

wow ...

there's really a need for another media player that runs only on one platform (windows), comes with buildin spyware, don't show album covers, can't playback gapless and can't handle mpc flac ac3 ogg and divx muxed with other audio streams than mp3.

BadHorsie

For your information, RadLight is here since year 2000 It doesn't come with "spyware", can easily be upgrader with a module to show album covers and can playback all of the files you mentioned if appropriate codec/splitter filter is installed Oh, and who said it will be Windows only?

ok ...

i've downloaded a copy to /dev/null

BadHorsie

He's a very good friend of mine. Year back he wrote his own custom version of RadLight called RadLight Exp (based on the sourcecode we shared with him) and his completely free version was deliberately removed by Ad-Aware.




Correct. There are sooo huge money in "security software" business. No wonder that we can see dozens of popup blockers and "evil spyware" removers entering the market. Most of them commercial



Well, this certainly is not a case of RadLight.



Not sure if this will work but I am doing my best. Unfortunately, some complaints agains "adware" (this time in quotes) are valid

The problem is all adware is being generalized into "spyware". For what? More sold licenses of these "security" tools. Sad but true.

Let me know if you encounter any bugs or problems

Thanks

Umm...... /dev/null is where the bad bits go when they die.

Same with the good bits too, actually.

Yes, I know. But when BadHorsie wanted to be so funny I wanted to be ironic

Also, DAvenger, I would suggest looking into other Adware/Spyware programs for RadLight. New.net is a bit sketchy

http://www.cexx.org/newnet.htm

Yes, I know

http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/ls/ne...-v-lavasoft.pdf

Anyway, which one would you suggest? (none ) Believe me, I would love to do that but ... we are not in such position as Bill Gates (well, that's not really the best example, heh)

first let me state that i dont approve personal attacks and flamewars. now, what i believe is that what irrates most people here is that, at this time, you still believe you did nothing wrong by deleting Ad-Aware to prove your point.

do i believe you should get paid for your work? of course i do. but, like others have stated before, you should have used the "you remove the helpware or whatever, the program won't work" philosophy. but you wanted to show the world how programs like Ad-Aware were mining your income and you just blew it. heck, i recall you were even /.ed (and that is a lot of bad press).

whether what you did was justified or not, i guess i'll never know, but as a company Radlight should have issued a public apology to all Ad-Aware users. it is common sense when you run a business, whether you believe you shouldn't have too. as a company you can't have the luxury of creating bad will among current and/or potential customers.

you are free to manage your company as you see fit, but remember that no company can survive without income. we all make decisions, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and all those come with an outcome.

Good Luck

Ok. I guess you are right.

I would like to apologize for whole RadLight team to all Ad-Aware users who had been affected & offended by our decision to uninstall Lavasoft's Ad-Aware upon execution of RadLight 3.03 R5.2. We did this to express our growing concerns about the continuing demonization of adware concept and because we felt that Ad-Aware was directly threathening existence of RadLight as such, mainly due to heavy revenue losses caused by this software application.

However, I won't issue any apology to the Lavasoft company itself. I have no intention to support what they are doing.

I also do not believe this will change anything. We will be always the evil company that does not care about it's users and that is driven only by money

Best regards,
Martin

Hey, that was quite good! *applause*

EDIT: And also MyMaster was quite great!

~Dologan

Thanks for reinforcing the fact that New.net sucks.

-------------Quoted from Kode54----------------------------

Thanks for reinforcing the fact that New.net sucks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Agreed!

Slightly OT, what was the result of the New.net/Ad-Aware dispute. Does Ad-Aware still detect New.Net shit? If I pay $20 to detect Ad-ware, I would expect any Ad-ware to be found. I'll be the final say on what stays and what goes on my system (REGARDLESS of how it got there). Good to hear Radlight has apologized to the community for their acts. I don't use Radlight myself when there are FREE ad-free alternatives.

voltron

PS
I also use S&D

Yes, it still detects New.Net crap.

cya

I wont join into the spyware discussion here, it makes no sense IMHO. Radlight guys have learnt from their mistake, now DAvenger even apologized in public for what they did, and i understand at least some of the motivation behind doing it.

If you code a player like Radlight, MPC or TCMP, distributing it becomes a real issue. When TCMP went public beta, we had several hundred thousand copies downloaded in the first weeks, each about 2 MB ... this sums up to some serious bandwidth, and donations for the player were about 10 US$ / week compared to that. Anyhow, we found a way to manage that, even with installing 'spyware' but its the right of the Radlight guys to go down this route if they prefer it to 'raping' normal website accounts of TCMP fans to allow free download. Again, it was a big mistake to deinstall ad-aware, but the guys apologized and promised to never do this again.


Now, lets bring this discussion back on topic :

Why should anybody want to test Radlight, what can it do that other players cant. Its important in this respect to mention the player is alpha, so its unfair to judge it on first sight.

My questions to you DAvenger, as this is an audio related site here. I know how you can do Ogg Vorbis ( using Tobias' filters ), but how do you plan to support

- MPC playback ( SV7 )
- FLAC playback
- AAC playback
- AAC from MP4 playback
- RA9 playback
- wavpack playback
- optimfrog playback
- tagging for all of the formats mentioned above ( read/write )
etc.

Are there any plugin structures like TCMPs CDL API that developers can build on ?

Thanks for telling us


BTW : yes, i know i am a mean person, with very bad intentions. I am so bad, there are some people even planning to 'bone' me, whatever this means in 'czechenglish' .....

What valid reasons can there be? Let us start by taking the point of view that the end user is informed of what he installs on his computer, whether in licensing agreements, or during the installation screens themselves.
So Radlight installs adware, fine, the user reads, the user accepts, all is well. However, the user also has Ad-aware, which he knows can delete most adware pretty well, because he has also read what it does. Up to now, everything is transparent to the end user.
What is happening now is that Radlight decides to uninstall Ad-aware without informing the end user. Boom. There's goes the trust the end user has in a promising video player like Radlight, a piece of software which has just tarnished its reputation by modifying the user's files without consent and prior knowledge.
Just to let you know, there are better ways to make adware stick to their applications. Cydoor, for one, has a pretty irritating way of disabling the software when cd_clint.dll is deleted.
Just that one abuse of the end user's trust, and now you get so much criticism when you announce a future version of your player. Maybe a lot of us here are so-called 'better informed', or just suckers for absolutely free freeware. In any case, modification of hard drive contents behind the user's back is a big no-no.



Well, if the Radlight team is able to come up with a player that bests even MPC, I am quite sure people will line up to pay for it. Of course, people will settle for second-best for many reasons known and unknown to the rest.

Edit: hmm, I apparently didn't read through thread page 3.

Thank you!


It was stated in the license agreement that RadLight would remove Ad-Aware.

@Christian : Would you accept if I ask Igor to reply to the second part of your post? He knows more about these things than I do

Back to the first part ... yes, that's true. Bandwidth costs are rather high and donations from my own experience do not really work.

@sld



No problem.



That's quite normal that free (totally free) solutions are more popular then the commercial ones.

All I can say after spending 15 minutes of my time reading this thread is... what a load of bull shit. DAvenger has provided NO information about RadLight 4's features and yet continues to ask us to install it and see for ourselves. In addition, when asked about specific features he points out that this is an alpha version, promises that RadLight will trump all other players, and overindulges in using smilies. I, like most users here, want to see hard facts instead of your "beating around the bush" style marketing. I'm willing to try RadLight (though I must say I am quite happy with MPC) if you tell me why. I'm not going to bother with the spy/adware discussion...

DAvenger has a few positive points: he's patient, he has humour sense, he think and then write, he knows to recognize a mistake... more than a lot of people do. So first, he has all my respect.
But sorry, I'll not use RadLight because there're good free/open source players, and I don't want to install adware software ("good" or "bad") in my computer. And downloading the add-free version, I'll be wasting your bandwidth without benefits for you (and I'm not being ironic ). Maybe you choose a very competitive/saturated field of business, don't you think?.

As friendly as DAvenger has been to everyone here, I'm in agreement with you.

MPC has filled all my needs and wants as a media player (well really, MPC and foobar2k. I prefer the latter for music).

In order to convince me to use RadLight, he will have to show me that MPC is lacking something I want in a media player. I don't think this will be possible since I've never had a stability issue with MPC and I don't really care that much about skinning.

That said, I'm prepared to change my opinion if he CAN show me something to make it worthwhile.

Edit -- posting too much today. Never mind, I need some sleep.

@AngelGR



Not at all. Actually, RadLight was one of the first alternatives to, at that time (3 years ago) most used Windows Media Player. I am not afraid to say that RadLight was here before most of you ever heard of DivX

Oh, and thanks for your nice comments

@Animaniac

I thought that the changelog would be enough My bad. I'll try to write more detailed description of all RadLight's features so even newbies can understand all the advantages of our player. I'll have it ready for next alpha which is due (hopefully) this weekend

@sthayashi



First of all, I didn't come here to convince everybody to use RadLight. I am sure nobody here would like if I came here and posted how good RadLight is compared to MPC, Zoom Player and BSPlayer (your favorite players )

I believe that RadLight can speak for itself but I also understand that there are many good & established alternatives and that it won't be easy to take back what was once ours. Year and a half ago, RadLight 3 was huge success but unfortunatelly, the circumstances didn't allow us to keep it free and we lost many users to these free players (heh, at that time Zoom Player was only WMP frontend using it's ActiveX component). We are in a big disadvantage in comparison to these players - all being free (well, except Zoom Player), that means we have to try to make our software better and worth 'paying' for.

Good night,
Martin

Yes, but I have doubts regarding the legality and enforceability of this License Agreement and it's not ethical in my opinion. Even more: this kind of EULAs may not be legal in some countries even if the user agrees with it. And Ad-aware didn't remove a core part of the application (if they say it's a core part of the program maybe that's because it was made that way on purpose) and always asks before removing the ad-ware/spyware, leaving the decision to the user.

Btw, all spyware removers (not only Ad-aware) I know detect SaveNow and New.Net.

And I made another test... I tried the latest alpha (with the fixed gui_base.dll) and it consumed the same or, in some cases, more amount of memory AND CPU than Zoom Player Standard, Media Player Classic or BSPlayer (edit2: with the latest ffdshow alpha). Therefore I do not have reasons to consider your claims true, even if some Radlight users also wrote according to them in your forum. These players may not be in alpha stage but all of them have way more features than the current alpha of Radlight4 or even the last stable version. Another friend of mine did the same test with BSPlayer only and concluded the same.

And finally... why do you call Radlight 4 a ""fourth generation" multimedia player"? edit: How DUH of me... because it's Radlight 4, right?

cya

PS: Zoom Player Standard IS free for Non-Commercial use.

cya

And what will you say about that: http://www.crystalplayer.com
AFAIK it's the fastest player...
The fastest one I know for sure. If someone doubts, just download it and test...

Well.. the point of these alpha-release versions is not to show unique features,
but to test a new architecture. That's why you may find it inferior to almost everything out there.

@HJW. As I already mentioned - the architecture is completely module based.
The Kernel application (radlight.exe) generally does not contain anything
except the most important objects to ensure the proper run of application. Everything else is customizable and pluginable. You can extend the player in any possible/impossible way. There is extensive
module support for any type of features - you can make your own
user interface, you can add your own windows, you can replace playback engines,
you can make it interact with other programs, you can override existing functions
e.g. subtitle support with your own or you can add a specific support for .... in fact there is no limitation for what you
can do.

@HJW. As for supporting the formats you've named... we will probably use a similar way you use - a (source+decoder)-in one - that is in fact the only meaningfull way in DirectShow, or write a module that will utilize your filter+your plugins (with your team's aproval, ... of course this would not be shipped in our default download-package).
Loading file tags is quite simple compared to decoding, isn't it.

This architecture also allows many other things like common settings file handling or resource sharing among all modles ... etc. And the best is - that those parts of application that you're not currently using are unloaded and deactivated so they don't consume your memory and cpu power. Larger parts of code should be opensource with C++/Delphi baseclasses + detailed documentation should be available for anyone willing to code.

For anyone interested - you can find a few sample modules
here : http://www.radlight.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=231

The architecture is quite sensible right now and I must eliminate all possible bugs.
Only then the more advanced modules may appear.

Regards,

RadScorpion

My utmost apologies.
Though license agreements tend to be a bit hard to read, anyway.

@m0rbidini and @sld:
I just stated a fact without comment. (I guess you knew that). Had the "informed" user read the license, he could have avoided the trouble. I didn't read the license and was quite astonished; at least this incident has made me more aware and I skim licenses nowadays (cuz I don't understand them anyway). Your standard legal license is specifically written to be as un-understandable as possible. Very long phrases, repetitive use of words, UPPER CASE:
Um... riiiight...

Hmm... I've commented on that spyware (helpware ) more than enough on Doom9's, just want to throw in a link for those who're interested in reactions from back in the day:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&t...&threadid=23827

Hell, even crap like GDivx can be sold, why shouldn't Radlight make money with their player, it would be easier if they've just gone for the normal Shareware way, instead of the Spyware+uninstall of software way. But, if you loose the trust of the users, you really blew it. The "I don't want to work for free so I can do whatever I want" attitude doesn't help much, either.

Personally, I think that there is enough freeware and/or GPL video software out there, so for the majority of the users there is no need for using Shareware/"Helpware" sponsored/Crippleware programs.

And a last comment, IMO, it's better to invest energy to enthusiast (and their programs) who are working for free (Gabest, Avery Lee, Maven, Jean Luc Pons and Dragongodz, Xvid team etc. etc.) than wasting it on people who are only interested in money (not that there is something wrong with money, but I do think there is a difference how you get it).

BTW, I like Spybot S&D, more than Ad-aware, will change that in my next freeware list update .

Cheers,

Mijo.

My $0.02...

After spending some 30 minutes out of my life reading this God-forsaken thread, and developing a moderate headache along the way...I'm not leaving without commenting! I shy away from ad-ware, as a rule...I use freeware if it's truly freeware, or I'll buy licensed software if it's something I need and can't find a freeware version of.

I intend no disrespect toward DAvenger, but I am having trouble understanding a concept he seems to be repeating throughout this thread...the idea that ad-ware is "required' to keep software free. "Ad-ware is required to keep software free" shouldn't be used as a blanket statement, because LAME is free but has no ads, MP3Gain is free but has no ads, etc. And I understand that it may be needed to keep software free if that software is created by a for-profit company, but take into account that time is money. Any amount of time, even a second, that I spend looking at an ad instead of performing my intended task...or time I spend having to wait for a splash screen to pass...or time I have to somehow interface with an ad to get it out of my way...or the worst, time I have to research why one of my desired applications was *uninstalled* and then find a disc and re-install it....all of that is time spent and, in effect, money spent.

So ad-ware is not *really* free to the end-user, is it? Personally, I only use *true* freeware such as LAME, foobar2000, WaveGain, UniversalFront, FLACdrop, MP3Gain, Tag/Tagger...and I use licensed software when necessary, PhatNoise Music Manager and Intervideo WinDVD Platinum. I will not be using RadLight, but not because of the Ad-Aware incident, or just because it's ad-ware, but for the reason some others here have pointed out. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'm perfectly happy with the functionality/performance of all of the freeware I use, I need PMM as it's the only s/w that can properly talk to my PhatBox DMS, and my Intervideo movie player works just fine for me.

It's not a matter of "What can RadLight do better for me?", because it doesn't matter what it can do. Unless, that is, it can do something *really* dramatic that I all of the sudden can't live without, like actually provide a clean, wonderful, customizable, easy-to-use front-end for *all* of my other applications and required activities. One app that can securely rip, wavegain, encode to and from FLAC, tag, allow command line editing of all sub-apps, create/manage playlists, play all my formats, write to the DMS, properly eject the DMS, all while NOT uninstalling any of my other software. The only such software that alone comes close to these capabilities (sans the DMS parts) AFAIK is fb2K, but I'm not smart enough to make much use of it yet. I understand that RadLight is only a media player, though, so the chances of it meeting my "silver bullet" requirements are pretty slim.

Bottom line: freeware I understand, licensed software I understand, but what seems like shady, "in-between" software, I don't. Especially if it claims to be "free" but really isn't. Maybe my IQ's just not high enough, considering the fact that I'm also not smart enough to really use foobar2000 yet...

Yeah B) That's exactly my point. I'm trying to make RadLight work in a way when everything is possible - not to be "just only a media player". With proper modules you can turn it into an encoding station or if you have an USB coffee machine you can make it e.g. make your favourite coffee depending on how much time you have spent with your pc.

Most of people are blinded by the spyware stuff and can't see what we are really trying to show.

If anything, this should be food for thought for the RadLight developers.

Maybe it would be a good idea to remove such blinding components to make the user focus on the more important things.

Yeah. sure... there are no inside.... and there won't be any as long as we are in alpha phase. Then there will be several options for the user to choose from. I agree that free software is much more attractive, but sometimes it is simply impossible.

RadScorpion is right

You may say that people like Gabest etc. do free software ... well, maybe they have some other jobs or something but we do not. Our only job is RadLight and I am not ashamed to say that we like the little money it brings us. Anyway, most of it goes back to hardware, software, hosting and so on. In other words back to RadLight and its users

If the software is good people are going to pay for it even if there are free alternatives. Maybe then want something more (like guaranteed free updates, priority support etc ...)

@RadScorpion:

Oh yeah, I'm blind... As if I didn't test all your latest stable versions and the latest alpha to comment...

btw, since you're the developer of Radlight could you please comment on the memory and cpu usage of the latest alpha of Radlight4? I asked before but you didn't comment on that...



Like I said before, I made the test with some DivX and XviD movies and compared with Zoom Player Classic, BSPlayer and Media Player Classic (latest ffdshow alfa installed). Radlight never consumed less memory or less CPU and usually consumed more. A friend of mine made the same test with BSPlayer only and had the same result. The latest alpha consumed more CPU and memory than BSPlayer.

cya

Well... the memory thingy is correct. I won't tell you right now how does it work (muhaha) but it caused some side-effects I did not like very much so I've dropped this for now in alpha3.

You are right that alpha3 has slightly higher memory usage then the players you named - but if you really want to see the difference
try out the alpha2 http://www.radlight.net/forum/index.php?ac...ype=post&id=927 - there's no spyware inside
The difference was quite astonishing especially with DivX files.

:sigh: ..... this brings us back to the one thing that the opensource world would need the most IMHO ..... a common, open codec API !

All the player developers could make their very own plugins for that, or include native support for en/decoders using the API in their kernel even, and everybody could easily use the same decoders without having to rewrite everything for every single player. Sure, we could come together and make real DirectShow decoders for all these formats named above, but then people would use them with M$ WMP or any other nice Graphedit GUI out there, and thats not the intention either IMHO ......

I guess i will bug Ronald 'BBB' Bultje, the Gstreamer developer, again about this ( he had a concept in his head and this was discussed on the mplayer, gstreamer, UCI, matroska and xine mailing lists already ), but first he has to improve the mkv plugin for gstreamer, so i wont disturb him now .....

That's fine ... the second idea was to make separate splitter and decoder filters just like for any other container. Perhaps they could be embedded to some other existing containers too...


hmm... IMHO... DirectShow is a codec API too. It is good enough to cover most of the users' needs. Any other codec API would be less or more complex and difficult. It would take very long time to adapt all existing stuff to the new API and in fact it's no real difference whether the coder learns DirectShow or any other API.

RadScorpion, you are thinking too much in Windows ..... this common codec API could be used by all encoding/editing programs also, and on all platforms .....

Windows is (and for some time will be) most used OS in the world. In fact, DirectShow is one of the best things Microsoft has ever done, it's widely supported and constantly developed for over 10 years now

Making video player for Linux could be a pain, but in our case we just replace the playback module, do some little changes to the rest of the code and we are in

Honestly, I do not believe that much of what you are speaking can be done without a strong (commercial) third party support. And as far as I remember there are not so many commercial video editing/playback apps under Linux and co.

For those who still do not believe in the power of the Revelation platform ...

http://www.dvbviewer.com/forum/index.php?s...=15&#entry11480

Alpha 4 has been released.

Download : http://www.radlight.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=244

P.S I am posting this here on Dibrom's recommendation (the original thread has been removed)