FARK.com: (7180625) Hey, remember WinAmp? Yeah, no one else does either

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		Hey, remember WinAmp? Yeah, no one else does either (gizmodo.com)		375
		More: Sad, Winamp, Realnetworks Realplayer, Windows Media Player, software visualization

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15011 clicks; posted to Geek » on 25 Jun 2012 at 3:59 PM | Favorite | share:

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phimuskapsi		2012-06-26 01:02:54 AM

No one mentions that WinAMP is actually a fairly decent AVI player as well as MP3.

/Used to make skins for 2.0/3.0
//Remember when I was first introduced in '97 to mp3's and mp2's.
///Get off my lawn *crap I'm getting old*

Ray_Peranus		2012-06-26 01:05:54 AM

studebaker hoch: When it came to finding .mp3 files, this thing:

[upload.wikimedia.org image 227x37]

paid off like a slot machine.

I forgot all about that program, awesome reference...

/winamp user since Windows 98
//my lawn
///mow it and then get off it

Cyno01		2012-06-26 01:11:27 AM

I just installed winamp and itunes on my parents new computer. Winamp took about 5 seconds to download and 10 to install... itunes, several minutes for both and required a restart.

Why are iPods so good but iTunes so bad?

namatad		2012-06-26 01:26:15 AM

Cyno01: I just installed winamp and itunes on my parents new computer. Winamp took about 5 seconds to download and 10 to install... itunes, several minutes for both and required a restart.

Why are iPods so good but iTunes so bad?

Because apple doesnt have any windows programmers.
Apple has some programmers who are punished by forcing them to port mac software to windows.

LOL

I get that there is an Apple way, like there is an MS way or a google way.
BUT
if you are making software for the PC, it is logical that you adhere minimally to some of the established standards. I have no problem with look and feel and blah blah blah.
BUT
It is hard to find settings because you put it in a different place than is "standard" on a PC.
This is the same crap we lived with when mainframe software was ported to the PC.
Sorry, but what ever your function key standard was on the MF, the PC is completely different.

So are you really trying to make MAC users happy when they use iTunes on a PC? HAHAHAHAH
or get PC users to switch to a MAC by showing us how awesome your software is??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

if iTunes on a PC was a tour de force of how wonderful software could be, people might think, WOW, maybe I should switch to a MAC and live in this wonderful new world.
Instead, we assume that using iTunes on a PC is what it must feel like to use a MAC.
So why would we switch??? SHUDDER

Yotto		2012-06-26 01:29:41 AM

I wrote my own barebones music player because I didn't like the bloat in Winamp and no other players I could find would effectively mimic Winamp's hotkeys. Plus, they all seemed bloated too.

/for my needs
//which boil down to "playing music"

mattwakeman		2012-06-26 03:33:25 AM

Still use it, still love it. Small, lightweight and powerful. I have a great transparent skin and it organises my media in exactly the way I want it to be. If only it would actually always 'stay on top' then it would be perfect.

Cannot believe in the article someone actually said that itunes>winamp as well 0_o

FastJeff		2012-06-26 04:04:26 AM

I still use it. Old as hell install file, but it's the same one I been using for years.

Ed Becker		2012-06-26 04:06:22 AM

Our old karaoke DJ introduced me to WA about 10 years ago. He still uses it on all of his rigs. I've been using it ever since.

/using WA right now, getting a kick, etc.

Freschel		2012-06-26 04:10:36 AM

Add me to the I use winamp list. Luxuria music FTW. Strike's Kitsch Niche FTW.

lordargent		2012-06-26 05:27:43 AM

cman: /Never tried to run WinAMP on Wine, so I cant say how well it works (if it works at all)

I don't use wine, I just kept the default icon :P

// wine always felt flaky to me, haven't used it since 9.04, now I just use virtualbox with an old XP license.

// apps in linux are much better about not being intrusive, so I either just start up banshee and minimize it to the tray or I start up pondus (to stream pandora) and minimize it to the tray. The media keys on my keyboard will work on either one (I haven't tested it thoroughly, but I believe the last app that had focus gets controlled by the media keys).

Smoking GNU		2012-06-26 05:36:34 AM

Still use Winamp, cause i like listening to my own music while playing games, and winamp is the only player i've found that doesn't fug everything up when i do this.

Honest Bender		2012-06-26 06:46:10 AM

dj_bigbird: Other than iTunes, I'm not sure there is a competitor for playing MP3s on PCs. I've used Winamp forever.

VLC. Want to watch a dvd ISO? VLC. Want to listen to ANY format of audio or video? VLC. Simple, elegant workhorse. Don't like the look of it? Skin it. I don't know why anyone would use anything else.

/Former winamp user.

Hacker_X		2012-06-26 07:11:53 AM

Naesen: Winamp beats the hell out of google music on android.

I prefer Deadbeef. It plays everything from FLAC to obscure tracker formats and will happily let them intermingle in one playlist. I think pretty much the only music format I have found that it won't play is MIDI and I might be mistaken on that.

Deadbeef

It isn't 100% perfect but you can't complain too much when even with the plugin pack it is only 3.5 meg and it plays something like 80+ file formats.

bbfreak		2012-06-26 07:42:02 AM

So I just thought I'd use this Foobar2000 thing you're all going on about. Uses more resources than WinAmp (not by much, but still. WinAmp: 19,780 k, Foobar: 20,432, takes more screen by default. Sticking with WinAmp, does what I want it to do and doesn't take a lot of space doing it.

Gordon Bennett		2012-06-26 07:48:07 AM

RKade: I use winamp for music and VLC for video. I'm un-hip.

I do exactly the same. Winamp will remain in use for me for its visualisations. The built-in AVS has many presets for free and small downloads and Whitecap is a lovely classic which, I have just learned courtesy of a Google search, has now gone commercial.

Sasquach		2012-06-26 07:54:03 AM

BafflerMeal: Cheeselover3000: I still use the hell out of winamp for everything except a few particularly obscure video formats, for which I use Media Player Classic.

I'm sad that I can't seem to find the Fallout skin that I used to use, though. The only one I can find on the site is similar, but not right at all.

?

[img.1001skins.com image 275x493]

I still have this skin if you want it....still use it!

urban.derelict		2012-06-26 09:07:39 AM

Bf+: I'm pretty sure iTunes was designed specifically to prevent you from listening to mp3s.

yeah which is why i set my preferences -- probably a decade ago with iTunes 4.0 -- to rip format: mp3 (and 160 kbps)

/my lawn, get off it

urban.derelict		2012-06-26 09:09:10 AM

Gordon Bennett: has now gone commercial.

Whitecap's been commercial for years and I thought about it... nope, not for $25. $5 maybe. Definitely not $25.

TheMikey		2012-06-26 09:49:24 AM

VLC Baby

bmxfelon420		2012-06-26 09:55:19 AM

foobar2000>all

Half Right		2012-06-26 10:12:32 AM

I am frankly surprised people still use WinAMP--it got bloated pretty quickly.

Foobar2000 is ultimate, in my opinion--nothing else comes close. Foobar was actually the primary reason I switched back to Windows (7) after switching to Linux (various distros) after XP. I've yet to find a program or player/plugin combination that quite equals what customized Foobar can do and look like. And it plays EVERYTHING, from flac to nsf and beyond.

CZMisfitsFan: I must be missing something with FooBar. I tried it a year ago and ditched it right away. I tried loading my entire music library in one shot (over 200k mp3s) into a playlist and after waiting ten minutes for it to load up, I just killed the app. With WinAmp, it just takes about 45 seconds or so to load the entire thing.

IIRC, Foobar did have some issues with large library databases, but it was addressed in a bugfix. Haven't had that problem personally.

IronJelly		2012-06-26 10:31:55 AM

It's a shame the program DreamRender never made it. That program was my intro to WinAmp. It was a program for Windows XP that made the windows wallpaper into a dynamic moving animated thingie. It had a plugin to tie into winamp, that the background movements would sync to the music.

MithrandirBooga		2012-06-26 10:33:15 AM

downstairs: RichieLaw: downstairs: Grand_Moff_Joseph: I hardly use it now...mainly because I just bookmark YouTube videos with songs I want to listen to.

Funny you should say that. I just realized yesterday that I hardly listen to actual mp3 files any more. At least when I'm at home. Its so much easier just to type in a song name on a you tube search. And you get the benefit of finding live, cover, or rare versions of said song you'd never heard before.

I'm all about online streaming. The iheart radio app and pandora are awesome.

To some, yeah. I'm real specific about what I listen to though... so the randomness doesn't appeal to me. But that's just me... my wife uses pandora, and I think its awesome for most people. Seed it with a Black Crowes song, and you'll get hours of songs, of which you'll probably enjoy 90% of.

I'm more of a "I want to listen to this specific REM song"... "now I want to hear this specific Electric Six song", repeat ad naseum depending on how much vodak I've had.

I can't stand stuff like Pandora or Spotify.

I don't mind the random playlist, I really don't. But if you seed it with any rock music, it eventually starts serving you shiat like Nickelback, Creed, Linkin Park, etc. There's literally no way to tell it "play me only GOOD rock songs. Just because I like rock doesn't mean Nickelback is to be played under any circumstances!!!"

And just 1 second of "Photograph" is enough to completely ruin my day.

/Look at this photograph...
//*stab*
///*smash*
////*seppuku*

MithrandirBooga		2012-06-26 10:43:50 AM

IrateShadow: homarjr: The original iPod was an ok mp3 player at best. The Zune was a better product. Creative Labs made a great product too, from what I remember.

The original iPod was actually a piece of shiat niche device. The only thing it had going for it was that apple traded off space for reliability by giving it a laptop hard drive. For you guys who remember the iPod as always being great, you're really glossing over the first gen variants. They were firewire only, had no windows support whatsoever, and a host of hardware issues.

Mine wouldn't work in the winter reliably; guess the hard drive froze up in sub-32 temperatures.

I hated that damn thing. It completely stopped working after about a year and a half. Couldn't figure out if it was the hard drive or the battery, as neither of those were replacable. Apple wanted me to send it in for like $100 to get it fixed, so I said fark it.

Didn't bother with portable music again until I went for a ZuneHD, which is in my opinion far superior to any iPod I've ever seen.

theorellior		2012-06-26 10:57:23 AM

MithrandirBooga: I don't mind the random playlist, I really don't. But if you seed it with any rock music, it eventually starts serving you shiat like Nickelback, Creed, Linkin Park, etc. There's literally no way to tell it "play me only GOOD rock songs. Just because I like rock doesn't mean Nickelback is to be played under any circumstances!!!"

There's what I like to call the Pandora Law of Coldplay: No matter the seed, an untended Pandora station will eventually choose a Coldplay song.

theurge14		2012-06-26 11:08:27 AM

Where Winamp users get their water.

dj_spanmaster		2012-06-26 11:15:23 AM

mcreadyblue: dj_spanmaster: Hell, I've got a co-worker that's on Windows 7 and STILL using Winamp. Which can't be that uncommon, being that the article starts with a picture of Winamp playing "Ben Folds Five - Do It Anyway", which has only just been released this year.

I still do. Was worried it wouldn't run, but does fine. Version 2.95.

/oldversion.com

That's cool. I think I'll get it for this new work machine.
You know your GeoCities site is offline, right?

MylesHeartVodak		2012-06-26 11:40:35 AM

I still use Winamp as my main audio and video player. It's not bloatware like other media players.

socodog		2012-06-26 12:12:05 PM

Again, F the Ipod....

http://us.store.creative.com/category/19937529081/1/ZEN-MP3-Players.h t m

Hand Banana		2012-06-26 12:49:53 PM

I don't know why so many people are sticking with 2.95 and its security flaws. The latest version is just as good, actually better since it supports more modern formats. Yes the short lived WinAmp 3 sucked royally but they fixed that long ago. Just download the latest WinAmp Lite and you're good to go.

Rwa2play		2012-06-26 12:55:52 PM

MadCat: I'm glad I'm not the only one that still uses this little gem of a music player. Yeah, I buy music through ITunes, but Winamp knows all about iTunes these days and has no trouble handling even DRMed tracks.

Ok, do tell; 'cause I'd gladly play all of my tracks on WinAmp instead of iTunes if I could.

Uncle_Sam's_Titties		2012-06-26 01:09:40 PM

IronJelly: It's a shame the program DreamRender never made it. That program was my intro to WinAmp. It was a program for Windows XP that made the windows wallpaper into a dynamic moving animated thingie. It had a plugin to tie into winamp, that the background movements would sync to the music.

Start Milkdrop, alt-d for desktop mode

Rwa2play		2012-06-26 01:13:13 PM

namatad: if iTunes on a PC was a tour de force of how wonderful software could be, people might think, WOW, maybe I should switch to a MAC and live in this wonderful new world.
Instead, we assume that using iTunes on a PC is what it must feel like to use a MAC.
So why would we switch??? SHUDDER

I recall a company putting out software pre-ITunes for Windows for the earliest incarnations of the iPod. Why didn't Apple buy *them* and put them in charge of the iTunes for Windows platform?

theurge14		2012-06-26 01:19:03 PM

Rwa2play: namatad: if iTunes on a PC was a tour de force of how wonderful software could be, people might think, WOW, maybe I should switch to a MAC and live in this wonderful new world.
Instead, we assume that using iTunes on a PC is what it must feel like to use a MAC.
So why would we switch??? SHUDDER

I recall a company putting out software pre-ITunes for Windows for the earliest incarnations of the iPod. Why didn't Apple buy *them* and put them in charge of the iTunes for Windows platform?

Because MusicMatch Jukebox was terrible. Which is probably why Dell loved it so much.

The_Pirate		2012-06-26 01:19:14 PM

I think I'm the only person left on the planet still using creative media source player from my zen xtra back in the day... Still does everything I need it to.

spentshells		2012-06-26 01:21:36 PM

It always goes corrupt but I still like the visualizations

JohnnyAqua		2012-06-26 01:55:18 PM

When I got my first iPod back in 2003, it came with iTunes and a registered version of WinAmp.

Rwa2play		2012-06-26 02:49:40 PM

theurge14: Rwa2play: namatad: if iTunes on a PC was a tour de force of how wonderful software could be, people might think, WOW, maybe I should switch to a MAC and live in this wonderful new world.
Instead, we assume that using iTunes on a PC is what it must feel like to use a MAC.
So why would we switch??? SHUDDER

I recall a company putting out software pre-ITunes for Windows for the earliest incarnations of the iPod. Why didn't Apple buy *them* and put them in charge of the iTunes for Windows platform?

Because MusicMatch Jukebox was terrible. Which is probably why Dell loved it so much.

It wasn't MusicMatch; a software called IPlay or something like that that was designed specifically for Windows users who wanted to get the iPod.

theurge14		2012-06-26 02:54:42 PM

Rwa2play: theurge14: Rwa2play: namatad: if iTunes on a PC was a tour de force of how wonderful software could be, people might think, WOW, maybe I should switch to a MAC and live in this wonderful new world.
Instead, we assume that using iTunes on a PC is what it must feel like to use a MAC.
So why would we switch??? SHUDDER

I recall a company putting out software pre-ITunes for Windows for the earliest incarnations of the iPod. Why didn't Apple buy *them* and put them in charge of the iTunes for Windows platform?

Because MusicMatch Jukebox was terrible. Which is probably why Dell loved it so much.

It wasn't MusicMatch; a software called IPlay or something like that that was designed specifically for Windows users who wanted to get the iPod.

Pretty sure it was but it didn't last too long if I recall. I think the Dell players and the Creative players used it too. Back in the ancient times when I used Winamp there were some strange cretins and weirdos using Musicmatch voluntarily. It was odd.

Skirl Hutsenreiter		2012-06-26 03:01:21 PM

dj_bigbird: Other than iTunes, I'm not sure there is a competitor for playing MP3s on PCs. I've used Winamp forever.

iTunes is like the guy who sits and organizes and reorganizes his record collection, but when you ask him to put something on he says, "Sure, lemme just finish moving all my 80s hair band stuff over to this shelf first".

\"Determining gapless playback information" was for a while the bane of my existence.

theurge14		2012-06-26 03:07:49 PM

Skirl Hutsenreiter: dj_bigbird: Other than iTunes, I'm not sure there is a competitor for playing MP3s on PCs. I've used Winamp forever.

iTunes is like the guy who sits and organizes and reorganizes his record collection, but when you ask him to put something on he says, "Sure, lemme just finish moving all my 80s hair band stuff over to this shelf first".

\"Determining gapless playback information" was for a while the bane of my existence.

"Gathering Genius information..."

IronJelly		2012-06-26 03:11:19 PM

Uncle_Sam's_Titties: IronJelly: It's a shame the program DreamRender never made it. That program was my intro to WinAmp. It was a program for Windows XP that made the windows wallpaper into a dynamic moving animated thingie. It had a plugin to tie into winamp, that the background movements would sync to the music.

Start Milkdrop, alt-d for desktop mode

Is that a fullscreen visualization? It's not quite the same if it is (but I have to actually try it when I get home anyway). DreamRender was an animated wallpaper. your iconssat on top of it. Truthfully, I no longer smoke cannabis by the handful, so I don't think I would be inclined to sit and stare at my wallpaper for any length of time, but I'm nostalgic.

Samwise Gamgee		2012-06-26 03:29:36 PM

theorellior: MithrandirBooga: I don't mind the random playlist, I really don't. But if you seed it with any rock music, it eventually starts serving you shiat like Nickelback, Creed, Linkin Park, etc. There's literally no way to tell it "play me only GOOD rock songs. Just because I like rock doesn't mean Nickelback is to be played under any circumstances!!!"

There's what I like to call the Pandora Law of Coldplay: No matter the seed, an untended Pandora station will eventually choose a Coldplay song.

Ha! For me it's Weezer's 'Island in the Sun'. Plays on virtually every station I create, several times a day. Nice song but it wore me out so I had to thumbs-down it.

lordargent		2012-06-26 03:54:03 PM

Hand Banana: I don't know why so many people are sticking with 2.95 and its security flaws.

Do you have anything in mind that isn't a trojan that requires the end user to do something dumb? The two biggest ones I can remember were triggered by

1) Downloading a compromised skin file and installing it.

(In one of the discussion threads, I read that one person downloaded a skin from an fserv on IRC. Really, none of the skins at the winamp site did it for you and you had to go to IRC to get more skins)?

2) Downloading a compromised playlist file and playing it.

(Unless you also have the media files, why are you downloading random playlists from the net? And why do you still have your browser set to automatically launch .pls files in winamp after downloading. Hasn't it been established by now that autorun anything is a bad idea (TM) )

Khryswhy		2012-06-26 04:06:22 PM

Been using it since approx. 1997. Works well and doesn't crash like pretty much every other program I've tried.
I like the Florescent Amp look. Works well with my black desktop. Just a music player floating on the screen somewhere. I have several versions back to at least 2.09.

www.stusbrewscruise.info

TheHopeDiamond		2012-06-26 04:08:58 PM

dj_spanmaster		2012-06-26 04:31:29 PM

Khryswhy: Been using it since approx. 1997. Works well and doesn't crash like pretty much every other program I've tried.
I like the Florescent Amp look. Works well with my black desktop. Just a music player floating on the screen somewhere. I have several versions back to at least 2.09.

[www.stusbrewscruise.info image 381x246]

That's pretty - reason in itself to go back to it.

Zachs Kappler		2012-06-26 05:34:39 PM

I used WMP till I dual-booted Linux. Turned out that converting those wma and mp3 files to ogg would give me back some space and not need to worry about codecs in Linux. When I would boot XP to play Freelancer however, I learned that WMP can't wrap it's head around anything BUT mp3, wma, or Apple's codecs, even with a codec pack like CCCP. Winamp on the other hand, did and let me start using FLAC for my CD collection.

/I'm using Winamp 5.62 and Winamp for Android, bite me.
//Tried WMP in Windows 7, laughed when it threw an error upon reading them.
/// I used to have a Earthbound skin on my Winamp 3 install, it still works with version 5.

kimmygibblershomework		2012-06-26 05:52:55 PM

dj_bigbird: Other than iTunes, I'm not sure there is a competitor for playing MP3s on PCs. I've used Winamp forever.

VLC. It sounds like you may be a mac user. I've never had any problem with it and moved over to it from winamp/wmp. It still has many of the backdoor network tricks ya could do with winamp and then some :) Check it out if ya haven't.

/in other news this article was complete shiat written by a hack who was not apparently alive when any of this technology was in use.
//Don't really know anyone that actually uses iTunes to play mp3s. Isn't that what the iPod is for? iTunes seems to be more of a management application. I hear more folks complain about how to get away from iTunes lol.
///Enjoy your music no matter what you use :)

Uncle_Sam's_Titties		2012-06-26 05:57:05 PM

IronJelly: Uncle_Sam's_Titties: IronJelly: It's a shame the program DreamRender never made it. That program was my intro to WinAmp. It was a program for Windows XP that made the windows wallpaper into a dynamic moving animated thingie. It had a plugin to tie into winamp, that the background movements would sync to the music.

Start Milkdrop, alt-d for desktop mode

Is that a fullscreen visualization? It's not quite the same if it is (but I have to actually try it when I get home anyway). DreamRender was an animated wallpaper. your iconssat on top of it. Truthfully, I no longer smoke cannabis by the handful, so I don't think I would be inclined to sit and stare at my wallpaper for any length of time, but I'm nostalgic.

nope, it's everything you hope it is. the only downside to it is it doesn't play well with multiple monitors.

if you have better than stock graphics there are many settings to tweak to get absolutely beautiful visuals, i highly suggest experimenting with them.

smoking handfuls or not, it's still nice to run in the background if i'm working on something

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