BORLOX  The installer package phones home without asking permission from the user. It also tries to cover its tracks.

When you run the installer, it installs, among a lot of other stuff you probably don't want, an application called "Pingie." Pingie is launched automatically by the postflight installer script, then deleted, so you never know it was there.

By runnings strings(1) on the executable in the Pingie.app bundle, you can see that it contacts a server at http://hints.netflame.cc/, which redirects to a Digital River marketing site. It sends, at least, the product version and your IP address.

The only reference to all this in the installation documents is in the middle of the legal boilerplate of the EULA:

"During the installation process and through use of the software covered hereunder, we may collect non-personally identifiable information, as well as personally-identifiable information, all as set forth in our Privacy Policy, available at http://www.divx.com/legal/privacy.php; please read it."

Read it indeed. And better yet, don't run the installer at all. Use Pacifist or some other tool to extract only the files you want from the package. In my case, that was only the QuickTime decoder component. I had no use for the player or any of the other questionable stuff in the package.  (Version 6.7.2)

GENERAL HONEYPOT  The makers of divx need to realise that people just want the codec, not all the extra stuff that's bundled it with. We have Quicktime, Niceplayer, VLCplayer and many others to do that job.

And why scatter so many of the files all over the system. This is nice codec, it's a shame that it's let down by how it's distributed. I'll stick with with Perian codec for now.  (Version 6.6)

MARUKO DRINKING TEAM  2006-11-22 (Wed) 6.6b2 is actually available if you click More Information above and navigate to the DivX Labs Blog... here it still listed as 6.6b1.  (Version 6.6b1)

DOM21  Version 6.6b1?? The app itself says it is "version 1.0.3". Why such a discrepancy?  (Version 6.6b1)