Turn Off RealPlayer “Download” Button

The newer versions of Real Player have added an annoying feature which will allow you to download a video playing in the browser. At first I thought disabling all the RealPlayer plugins within Firefox would take care of this. It did not and then I noticed the same thing happening in Chrome. After some poking around in RealPlayer (which I rarely use) I found out how to turn off this feature.

  1. Launch RealPlayer*
  2. From the RealPlayer drop-down menu at the upper left select Preferences..
  3. Click the Download & Recording category (2nd from the bottom)
  4. You can either un-check the enable box (will turn off for all installed browsers) or in the section below select on of the other options.
  5. Click OK
  6. Close and restart Firefox

* You can also click the drop-down button on the right-side of the button and this will open RealPlayer preferences to the Download & Recording category. However, accessing this method may cause your system to become unresponsive for a few seconds.

10 Comments on Turn Off RealPlayer “Download” Button

  1. Thank you! That was driving me crazy. I disabled it before but somehow downloaded the latest version and it came back. Jeez, you’d think preferences would transfer between versions.

  2. Thank you. I fully agree on what Jeff said and I have to be grateful for your post..

  3. This does not work for me because there is download and recording button in preferences on my version of real player, please help

    • Same here no “download and recording button”

    • When I thought about it, here is how I disabled it having no “download and recording button”. I have firefox so I went to tools > add ons > and clicked “disable” next to the real player add on, restarted fire fox. I hope it works for you.

    • I found my problem for not seeing the “download and recording” option was I was looking in Real Player. I found it instead by typing in “RealDownloader” in my start menu, and thence clicking left drop down menu. Thanx so much for the help!

  4. For Firefox

    Just go to :
    Tools add-on (ctrl+Shift+A)
    Extension -> disable RealDownloader

  5. Thank you! I thought I was rid of this thing but IT CAME BACK!!!!

  6. My problem is the exact opposite. I can’t get the downloader button to appear even though the enable button is clicked. I have windows 7 and am wondering what the heck is going on. Thanks.

Comments are closed.