Winamp News

[Ishayin]

Great news for Winamp fans! Looks like development is firmly back on track now after the many years in limbo with two separate branches being worked on. One will be a continuation of the current 5.x for Windows, with a v5.9 due in a few weeks, and an optional online services view in the pipeline. The other will be a completely separate Winamp 6 development branch which will be cross-platform, but presumably a much longer road to reach maturity:

 

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3219772&postcount=2354

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3220285&postcount=2373

 

 

I'm still on good old v5.666, since its always worked perfectly for me, but apart from v5.8 (which is supposed to have performance benefits on newer versions of Windows), there is also the separate WACUP community project as an alternative.

[Azther]

had no idea winamp was still going, thats pretty awesome. Might give it a look later but currently using MusicBee myself

[Ishayin]

I've been looking for an alternative that works well on Linux for years so I can finally ditch Windows, but I've never been able to find anything that comes remotely close in functionality and UI/UX for managing large collections and the flexibility of dynamic organisations available via Smart Views (e.g. I use one to prioritise playing music that I haven't heard recently, weighted by the rating of the track. It's like my own personalised ideal radio stream :). I'm hoping the new cross-platform version might in the future provide a pathway for getting the current full desktop experience over to Linux, though I imagine that's still some years away.

[jaybee83]

4 hours ago, Ishatix said:

Great news for Winamp fans! Looks like development is firmly back on track now after the many years in limbo with two separate branches being worked on. One will be a continuation of the current 5.x for Windows, with a v5.9 due in a few weeks, and an optional online services view in the pipeline. The other will be a completely separate Winamp 6 development branch which will be cross-platform, but presumably a much longer road to reach maturity:

 

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3219772&postcount=2354

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3220285&postcount=2373

 

 

I'm still on good old v5.666, since its always worked perfectly for me, but apart from v5.8 (which is supposed to have performance benefits on newer versions of Windows), there is also the separate WACUP community project as an alternative.

thats awesome! im also still using the venerable ol' v5.666 😄

[defcon42]

I have been a hardcore WInamp user for an eternity. Since it's "official" demise, i switched to Foobar and never looked back. It's highly unlikely to match my current experience with Foobar - already running 10+ years strong - even with a rekindled Winamp. Foobar already has everything to offer. Customization, very fast and still lightweight.

[Ishayin]

2 hours ago, defcon42 said:

I have been a hardcore WInamp user for an eternity. Since it's "official" demise, i switched to Foobar and never looked back. It's highly unlikely to match my current experience with Foobar - already running 10+ years strong - even with a rekindled Winamp. Foobar already has everything to offer. Customization, very fast and still lightweight.

 

I love Foobar as a quick/mini player, for managing multiple playlists side by side, and for some particular utility functions like the ABX tracks plugin (double blind test yourself comparing two tracks – the only way to know for sure what bitrate / format differences you can truly hear). But it doesn't come at all close as a replacement for the large library management and filtering functionality of Winamp unfortunately (for me at least). It also has a weird long standing bug of the seek bar not working for flac files. But still a highly recommended piece of software for sure!

[epguy3]

Winamp v5.9 RC3 released near end of July 2022:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=458120

 

[Ishayin]

On 8/23/2022 at 6:09 PM, epguy3 said:

Winamp v5.9 RC3 released near end of July 2022:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=458120

 

 

It's a great step forward, but looking at those notes I think I'll wait until 5.9.1 before updating my system. Really looking forward to native opus support with that to replace the third party plugin I use for it currently (which is good but not quite perfect).

[6730b]

Still using the 2013 version, currently on 4 machines.
Now and then testing anything and everything to replace it, but always returning to the solid, reliable old dinosaur.
Know nothing about possible insecurity (or win 11), only situation that would call for the "new and better".

[Ishayin]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:36 PM, 6730b said:

Still using the 2013 version, currently on 4 machines.

 

Yeah, same here. Good old 5.666 still serves me faithfully every day. Though I did recently install 5.92 under Wine in Linux and it seems to all work just fine on first impressions beyond some missing Japanese font support which I can probably fix. I've been thinking of upgrading my main machine to it some day mainly to get the native Opus support which I'm currently using the BogProg plugin for. The only other thing I can ever see potentially replacing Winamp in the longer term for me is gmusicbrowser, as I think it's weighted filtering functionality should be at least as good as, and might even be more powerful than Winamp Smart Views.