I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
I HATE RealPlayer, I think the quality sucks, and it's total BloatWare.....BUT, I have it installed. For those very *rare* occassions when I need something that it's RP format. I set it to disable autoupdating, totally disabled every instance of "calling home", it's not associated with any other files except Real files. And I never ever hear from it. I totally forgot I had it installed till this thread reminded me. So, it's not that big of a deal.
KeyserSoze