Hey, here's an idea.
I remember demos always came in EXE files.
The ModPlug player is like 580kb and the plugin which is more minimalistic is even smaller, meaning a fraction of the averag module's file size. If we're afraid about portability, why not just make our module files self-playing, thus maintaining the quality?
:)
There are programs to convert modules to exe (believe www.xmplay.com or www.un4seen.com has this).
The downside of this is that people nowadays don't dare to open exe files anymore due to the possibility of encountering a virus. Why not use the module itself or the mp3? most people can play that anyway.
also there is the issue of different os', or even future versions of windows.
linux users for instance would need some kind of utility to rip the module out of the exe before they could listen to it...
plus, as much as i love demos, you cant put them on a playlist....
2 LPChip
I don't like opening exe's on the web either, so my remedy is to set the browser to always save those files on disk.
Only after a virus-scan of that file, I would run it.
And Snu has a good point about compatibility. At least I know that the mod-plugin of Olivier doesn't work with IE on XP anymore.
Try http://www.berotracker.de/downloads/mod2exe.exe (It's for windows, and it generates windows PEEXE files, and it supports the most module formats). But it's a unoffical until now unreleased program from me.