For all of the people proclaiming that RealPlayer's day has passed, the constantly updated program from RealNetworks is still going strong in 2012, 17 years after its initial release. Today, it supports more video and audio formats, more devices, and more third party platforms than ever before.

Features Galore

RealPlayer started out as a basic media player, which supported local and streaming video playback. Over the years, RealPlayer has added video download capabilities, social network integration, and a short list of video editing tools.

To download videos from websites, users can use the RealPlayer add-on for Firefox or Chrome, but only unprotected video formats are supported. RealPlayer also features Facebook and iTunes integration, useful for making backups or building personal libraries.

RealPlayer's video streaming capabilities were more useful 10 years ago when the RealMedia format was widespread. The Internet-wide shift to HTML5 has rendered RealMedia and its successors obsolete. Streaming support is still a useful feature to have on the off chance that you stumble across one of those formats, and it's better to have an unused feature than to need but not have.

RealPlayer is also improving its third party device support to include more smartphones. With many smartphones including 8 MP cameras capable of recording 1080p video, it's great to be able to transfer and edit videos from your phone to your computer in one step. You can also convert video files to a variety of formats perfect for your phone.

RealPlayer is a stable piece of software, and the basic version is completely free. Some of the more advanced features require RealPlayer Plus, which includes additional capabilities like DVD burning. Unfortunately, the video editing tools are rudimentary at best, supporting only video trimming and file conversion. However, RealPlayer is still one of the better video players out there, and few other free programs offer the same level of support.