Ya know after reading your post I recalled back in the day when several sites would have exclusive deals with realplayer, and you would have to install it to stream video and audio from them. I remember trying to help people recover after installing it... or getting it to install.... I have to agree that that old school real player (G2 and others) was the worst of the worst.
The last I head of Real they were making a new version that let you save your youtube and other online video to your local drive, I thought at the time.. that is a great concept, the
MAFIAA will have it shut down in no time... it faded from my mind... until your post.
I just tried visiting real.com to see what they are up to these days... my system blocks their website for ad tracking malware... guess they are continuing in their tradition of excellence