Linky to article

Shame, they are legendary piece of software ever created. I stopped using them years ago tho, latest version is full of bloat and features that I don't need. Now I'm using AIMP3 which is simple and lightweight enough for me.

Related to the topic, what's your favorite music player at the moment?


UPDATE: AOL reportedly to sell Winamp to Microsoft Linky

11 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

I just use VLC to play music and videos. It works very well and have never had a problem with it.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Same here now. Does all my media content.

Back in the day, I used to be a huge fan of winamp.
Then for some reason, they decided to make it bulky with the new skin system and it was just bloatware..., then making it paid again via shareware was the killing blow for it... but then that's what happens when AOL buys things.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You were a toddler in its heyday.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

+1

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

damn, have used Winamp for like 15 years.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

same

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

same here :(( screw aol!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I remember using it ages ago - now can't be bothered with it. I guess the same, they attempted to make something good better by just slapping extra crap no one wants on it, throwing in some additional adware and spyware, etc.

"I stopped using them years ago tho, latest version is full of bloat and features that I don't need."

So according to that logic, next news report - Microsoft Windows shuts down for good?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

lol you're unnecessarily broadening my statement. I'm talking about it's functionality as solely music player, I don't need internet radio and other stuff.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Fine I'll cut out the spyware disclaimer. They say it's all anonymous then assign each person an unique id locked onto their pc - tracking your behavior, music you rip, etc - lol.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

"So according to that logic, next news report - Microsoft Windows shuts down for good?"

Dude, it's like 2013 now, maybe stop using Windows ME? -.-

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I think I'll avoid the Spybox... I mean Xbox One, etc. Almost 2014.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Let me guess, Chrome or Mac user? :>

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Nop, Windows 7 but extremely modified to taste/performance/security user with a lot of crap ripped out.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Winamp 1.666!
But seriously... these days, YouTube or VLC. Nowhere near as feature-nice as oldschool Winamp, but everything else is lacking and AOL destroyed newer Winamp with all the (mostly optional, but still annoying to disable) bloat.
tbh, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did with AOL.
And I'm thankful that Justin and co. have other projects that are still very useful (Reaper, Twitch.tv)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I don't listen to music...

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

sad boi

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I also use AIMP. It's what Winamp 2 should have become: it improves it in every way without adding any bloat.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Most of the music I listen to is via a bloat-reduced Winamp player with the Maiko WASAPI plugin and then through my DAC. This is sad.

EDIT: If anyone knows another player that supports Wav, Wavpack, FLAC, ALAC and APE files and bit-perfect playback up to 24 bit/192 Khz please let me know. Foobar is too ugly, but it has fairly good plugin support so that might be the only option if the current Winamp build gets buggy (the version before the current build suddenly started to freeze when scanning the library).
I would probably use itunes if the output wasn't so restricted, I like the clean interface and the organization (+ I have an ipod), the sound quality is just subpar for home listening.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

To put it bluntly, if foobar2k is ugly for you, that means that you haven't tried hard enough.
Ex am pl es from the first page of a Google search that show the range of possibilities if you put effort in.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I haven't tried very hard as I spent plenty of time getting proper sound, I really don't care much about the aesthetics as long as they are functional and the organizing feels natural. I respect that people customize their players in this regard, but it is not something that I want to invest a lot of time in.
I did end up with a result similar to your 3rd link actually, but it felt lackluster to me compared to Winamp, so at the time I really saw absolutely no reason to make a change. As I state Foobar might be an option if Winamp starts to fail, but I really hope to find a more complete product where I can focus on what matters - the sound.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

AIMP3 supports all those formats and bit-perfect 32bit/192 Khz output.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Thanks, I will look into that, haven't stumbled upon that player before.

EDIT: Seems it supports WASAPI too, I might even test this out before Winamp bugs out :)

EDIT2: Do you know whether it has a "slave to input" feature to avoid up-/downsampling when switching between filetypes? Thanks again.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

While I mourn for this popular audio player I love iTunes and have tried many other alternatives without success.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

iTunes uses way too much memory though.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I've heard, but seriously, try and suggest something with the same level of organization and works with an iPod.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Depends on what iPod you are talking about.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Classic.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Anapod explorer will handle your iPod, freeing your memory for something lighter than iTunes.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

But I use iTunes for an audio player. Anapod Explorer is just an iPod manager.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Which I have said in my post that it will free your memory for something lighter than iTunes.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

RIP Winamp...used it so much in middle/high school

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I still use WinAMP :(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

me too, damn, no longer support. But, stupid question, sotfware itself would still work right?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yes, as long as it will be compatible with your system. With Windows 8.1 it's still working, but hell knows if it will be in Windows 9/10/11 :/

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yep, I've been using it since the beginning. I still run it every single minute of every single day, aside from when I'm asleep.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It starts on startup and I use it to play music while I sleep. It'll be greatly missed once it stops working properly and I can't get it to work again.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I use it heaps. Nothing comes close to maintaining multiple playlists! Sad day :(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Me too :(
Oh well.. I'll just have to find something else after few years or something =x

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Likewise. I switched to iTunes for a while when I got an iPod, but when I abandoned that and went looking for another player, I tried a few newer ones and always found some glaring flaw before going back to my trusty WinAmp. I always figured there was probably something better out there if I kept looking, but WinAmp did everything I needed it to do and using it had a nice nostalgic feeling.

This news made me sad. :(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Same here, for the last 15 years or so.
Never had a problem with it. Even used it as video player before .mkv were the norm.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Still use it here too. I've tried Foobar, WMP, iTunes and Media Go, but none of them come close to Winamp in terms of appearance and features. Never had a single problem with it. I guess I hate iTunes because it's Apple as well though, Amazon MP3 and CDs ftw.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I'm in the same boat.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Foobar2000 is awesome, especially for people with large audio collections.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I have the mobile app...I paid for some of the features on it too like the Album Washer very recently....:(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I use both WinAMP and Foobar2000, but I still like to use the former. :/

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

welp, RIP winamp, used them before for maybe 6 years, then switched to foobar

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Never liked it, I use Windows Media Player for mp3s, VLC for everything else.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

ouch xD

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yeah I'm just not really confortable with simpliest things :D

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Used it during the Napster and Kazaa days.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Haha that's what it makes me think of as well! Windows 98se, 56k modem, Kazaa/Napster and Winamp - a winning combination!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Dont forget Soulseek ;)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

MediaMonkey.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I liked WinAmp 1 & 2, but with 3 they gone in a wrong lane...

Amarok 1 was a good player too, I liked it, but with the release 2, I did not really liked the changes... I know, there are forks from it, but it needed some time to happen, and I wanted listen to music in the meantime of course, so I searched for another player.

Nowadays I use Rhythmbox & VLC for music.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Winamp 5 forever.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Tempted to download a copy of Winamp before it gets herder to find, just in case I feel like using it again for some reason. I think the more amazing story is that AOL is still around. How have they not died the horrible slow death they've been deserving for 10+ years yet?

I use VLC, just because it's easy. Foobar2000 is fine with my huge library, but I find it's easier to use VLC for just a few songs at a time, which is all I tend to listen to anymore.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Mplayer with no gui.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I have used it for years but I moved to Media Player Classic since I started to use KLM codecs

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I still rock the 15+ year old Winamp 2.95. No bloat, no spyware, no forced network communication, easily disabled "Winamp Agent", no intrusive installed bits and bobs, no frills, no bullcrap. Just a music player that can play internet radio, has extensive file type support, a visualization thingy which you can install stuff like Geiss / Milkdrop to (although I never use them, only when people are over / house party). It NEVER crashes (it even keeps running if everything else including Windows itself crashes :P), takes a tiny amount of resources, and is fast. Been happy with it all this time. I saw what they did with Winamp 3.x, then 5.x, never installed either of them on any PC I've ever owned.

On that topic - check out oldversion.com. All proggies you'd ever want an old version of! :D

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

THX! was looking for a version just before 3 <3

BTW: Do you know where I get the MMD3 skin which works with that version?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I never bother with skins. Here's what my Winamp looks like with a bunch of radio stations and some tunes in the playlist. I don't use the EQ because I use the EQ on my headsets' program to do it system wide - yet keep it there out of nostalgia, find it good to have a pre-amp available + I like always having options :P.

Messed with a few skins back when I was 13 (16 years back :P) and never again bothered. Too much hassle, especially when having to edit skins I liked to make em compatible with 2.95.

Anyway, with 3 they redid the basic code / playback of MP3's from the ground up, which was worse than the 2.x line; it took more resources, and was buggy / far less stable. They realised it was a botch-up, and to distance themselves from the 3.x line (which was abandoned after only a few releases) when redoing the code again to fix it, they skipped straight to Winamp 5.x - to prevent people thinking a potential version 4.x was somehow just an update of 3. That's why you never see a version 4 anywhere :D.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

hey, that's a pretty cool site.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yes, yes it is. For realio. Also useful to get old versions of torrent programs from, in case a private tracker you use only accepts specific versions of clients (which happens often). Go ahead, try finding / downloading an old version of, for example, uTorrent. Can't friggin' find it anywhere.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I love you.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I'm using AIMP too. Never liked WinAMP myself, but not totally against it, could see why people liked it before "bloating"...

To me this is the thing that buries software nowadays. Now KMPlayer has gone that way as well... guess I'm gonna be switching to PotPlayer soon

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

See my post right above yours.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Whaaat!!!?? But i still use it everyday with DFX and i didn't have a single issue with it, a sad day to me...

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Closed 11 years ago by RanTH.