QuickJudge!

All is forgiven, and I'm a dork.

As the regulars know, I have a love-hate relationship with Apple.

When I reformatted Lorelei, I decided to drop by the QuickTime website and get the new version of QuickTime since I was sure they'd released a new version since last I installed it.

I was horrified to find when I reached their download page that they were foisting copies of iTunes on every person who downloaded QuickTime 7, and I instead went and downloaded the excellent QuickTime Alternative as a plugin for a player I already had, the nearly flawless Media Player Classic.

I was so disappointed because I have always held QuickTime is especially high regard as a portion of the Apple product lineup. It's an excellent player with a simple, clean feature set, almost flawless streaming capabilities and a bulletproof browser plugin. In short, I love QuickTime.

Whenever these sorts of "bundled" deals are pushed in my lap I revolt. Mainly because I hear "Hi there, would you like a heaping helping of DRM and a steaming pile of Hipster bullshit along with your media player? I think you would!" in this particular case.

I have refused to install any official RealMedia product for years for the same basic reason. However, it has come to my attention today that I was in the wrong about QuickTime. It is still possible to download the standalone QuickTime player.

I would say this warms the cockles of my heart, but frankly that word cockles has always kindof freaked me out.

By the way: the QuickTime Alternative plugin for MPC is still handy for one thing: it allows you to play .qt and .mov files in fullscreen mode, so you might want to just bite the bullet and install both so you have the option.