InterActual Player

Interactual Player, originally known as the "PC Friendly" player, is a DVD player for Microsoft Windows, included on over 1500 DVDs, mostly from Hollywood studios. In addition to providing DVD playback control it makes available extra material on some DVDs, including new commentaries, pop-up notes, synchronized screenplays, and games. It requires existing DVD player software, which it embeds in the interface for playing the actual DVDs.

The program itself has been fraught with compatibility and technical issues, causing many people a great deal of problems.Fact|date=July 2008

InterActual Player software automatically displays an installation dialog when a user inserts a DVD containing it into the DVD-ROM Drive. Many people have complained about this [http://forums.pcworld.co.nz/archive/index.php/t-35321.html] , [http://cro.alienpants.com/index.php/2005/12/01/software-id-like-to-see/] , [http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1765/] . If the user chooses to install InterActual Player it becomes the default DVD player and creates a shortcut on the desktop and a link to the InterActual website. It also asks the user to voluntarily supply information and allow usage data to be sent over the Internet.

Users have accused the software of bundling certain spyware and malware programs within the installation. None of the major spyware detection programs or virus scanners have detected any such programs. InterActual player does, however, collect personally identifiable information and 'calls home' to submit collected data. This information includes user's personal details such as name and address, but also a list of all DVD titles played. See analysis of this data and InterActual player's network usage in external links below.

Several other DVD player programs support viewing InterActual content without any of these information collection features.Fact|date=August 2008

External links

* [http://player.interactual.com/ Official site]
* [http://www.interhack.net/pubs/pcfriendly/ Analysis of data Interactual sends when it calls home]
* [http://www.struat.com/here/001179.php Allegations of bundling spyware]

Depending on your system configuration,Interactual will also tell you that your video codecs are incompatible and direct you to a site containing codecs to download,for a price.