History
The first version of RealPlayer was introduced in April 1995 as "RealAudio Player" and was one of the first media players capable of streaming media over the Internet. Then, version 4.01 of RealPlayer was included as a selectable Internet tool in Windows 98's installation package. Subsequent versions of the software were titled "RealPlayer G2" (version 6) and "RealOne Player" (version 9), whilst free "Basic" versions as well as paid "Plus" versions, the latter with additional features, have also been offered. For the Windows OS, the RealPlayer version 9 subsumed the features of the separate program, RealJukebox.
RealPlayer 11 was released for Microsoft Windows in November 2007 and for Mac OS X in May 2008. RealPlayer 15 was released November 18, 2011. This version allows users to transfer video, music and photos between their computers and mobile devices, share links of videos and photos on sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and download videos from popular sites such as YouTube and Metacafe.
RealPlayer was initially accessed by many users as a plugin to watch streaming video or listen to streaming audio (most of the BBC's websites formerly employed the plugin); but in the 21st century, Adobe Flash has become the preferred option for this purpose (demonstrated by the comparable success of the BBC iPlayer). Despite this, it is still one of the most downloaded video-players for its feature of being able to download nearly every type of video from almost every site.
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