We’ve heard all the recent hype about Amazon’s new music download site, amazonmp3, but I’d not taken the time to actually check it out. Not until Jeff proclaimed his love for the new service

Totally digging the Amazon MP3 store! DRM FREE! I will be supporting this with my wallet, and you should too.

Yeah, that’s right... I’m totally susceptible to peer pressure.

Anyhow, I clicked on over and started checking it out and have so far been pretty impressed. But I do have one big complaint - they use RealAudio to serve up all of the music samples.

I thought Real was dead

Seriously, I thought Real, along with their bloated media players, had died off shortly after the first bubble burst. But apparently not. They have a web site and everything! But I digress...

It appears that if you want to listen to previews on amazonmp3 you need to install one of Real’s players. Or not?

Being a fan of lightweight tools, I went in search of an alternative to the overweight RealPlayer and found just what I was looking for in Real Alternative Lite.

Real Alternative Lite will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer.

Get yourself some Real Alternative

Perfect! Just what I need. And what’s better, Real Alternative Lite will install the necessary plug-ins for both Mozilla/Firefox and IE (via ActiveX, naturally). You can find both Real Alternative Lite and it’s big brother, Real Alternative, at free-codecs.com.

Ok, now back to the music. Deliciously DRM FREE music...