RealPlayer uses a sophisticated compression scheme to squeeze the size of audio and video files. Using this technology, it is possible to listen to audio files while they are downloading instead of waiting hours like other sound formats require. On an average, RealPlayer files are 4 times smaller than their original size.

RealPlayer is available for free from RealNetworks and versions are available for Windows 98, Windows 3.1, Macintosh, and UNIX.