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Unofficial Winamp Web Site

mywinamp.com

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Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#31

Post by shrikant »

lazyjeff wrote: post #14
ktzar wrote: post #11

There's is a website that's keeping versions of Winamp, including the one I consider the best 2.95 https://winampheritage.com/download-winamp-player

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

As an aside, I've heard it discussed (on the likes of Slashdot) that one of the reasons Winamp 3 sucked so badly was that they rushed a release that was basically meant to be a complete rewrite just to have "mp3" in the application name.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#32

Post by kaoD »

mrweasel wrote: post #17
deanCommie wrote: post #7

One could argue we made better ways to play MP3s on our computers. But nothing has come anywhere close to improving or replacing Milkdrop

I would argue that WinAmp and XMMS where the last good audio players. Why is it that modern music players think that the need to do library management, why are they fullscreen applications? We need to start maintaining winamp and the clones again.

I use VLC as an audio player for this exact use case.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#34

Post by rekabis »

kaoD wrote: post #29
lazyjeff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

> What happened? Capitalism. You can't make money out of shareware, so now everything is SaaS. This makes software way harder to write since now you're responsible for a distributed platform, including devops. Competition is fierce now. There are very low barriers to entry, which made hobbyist projects (which is what Winamp would be considered now) mostly free. If there's any money left in those low-barrier markets m…

I would roundly disagree. If you find an unexploited niche and effectively corner it, there are still opportunities out there.

Just look at Bitwarden. It started out as a free and truly secure answer to password managers that were cross-platform and web/browser-based, but had issues with trust and privacy. A lone developer put his money where his mouth was, and built the product up into a SaaS that is now a small but profitable company. It’s now the fastest growing password manager out there, and certainly one of the more popular among techs.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#35

Post by mhd »

kaoD wrote: post #29
lazyjeff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

> What happened? Capitalism. You can't make money out of shareware, so now everything is SaaS. This makes software way harder to write since now you're responsible for a distributed platform, including devops. Competition is fierce now. There are very low barriers to entry, which made hobbyist projects (which is what Winamp would be considered now) mostly free. If there's any money left in those low-barrier markets m…

> You can't make money out of shareware, so now everything is SaaS.

This is mixing two concerns: Selling stand-alone applications and the specific shareware distribution model.

The SaaS world is struggling with the "freemium" model, too. Nothing pretty much changed there, you get your nag-screens, limited features etc.

Selling apps still works for a lot of people. Sure, it's harder when there's a popular free version available, but the same is true for SaaS again.

One major issue is the pernicious "growth" mindset: Today it's often not enough to earn some decent money, you have to "found" something. And sure, it's friggin' hard to grow a company out of a shareware product.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#36

Post by Kuraj »

shrikant wrote: post #31
lazyjeff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

As an aside, I've heard it discussed (on the likes of Slashdot) that one of the reasons Winamp 3 sucked so badly was that they rushed a release that was basically meant to be a complete rewrite just to have "mp3" in the application name.

... I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#37

Post by pferde »

smcl wrote: post #24

If, like me, you only recently decided to start listening to your music collection on a linux desktop and were dismayed to find that xmms was split into some odd client/server model, you can still use the original xmms 1.x. I wrote up how I built it here, since I found it a bit fiddly: https://blog.mclemon.io/debian-building-the-original-xmms

You may be interested in Qmmp - a Qt-based winamp-style player. I use it every day, it's pretty great.

http://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#38

Post by pferde »

sandoooo wrote: post #21
mrweasel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that WinAmp and XMMS where the last good audio players. Why is it that modern music players think that the need to do library management, why are they fullscreen applications? We need to start maintaining winamp and the clones again.

For pure mp3 playing, foobar2000 is like winamp except still getting updated, with less ugly (more OS-conforming) UI. For even more simplicity, there's no reason you should need a separate app for mp3s and movies, and mpc-hc is the best no-nonsense media player.

I think there is a reason to keep audio and video playback separate, because you approach them differently.

When you are watching video, it's usually where your attention goes, whereas listening to audio is something done "in the background", while your attention is elsewhere (reading, writing, playing a game, or even cleaning the house).

Therefore to me it is obvious that an audio playing application should behave like a good butler - readily available when you need to e.g. change the playlist, but invisible otherwise - and I would compare a video playing application to a live entertainer.

A video playing application should of course also get out of your way so you can focus on the actual video, but there is a subtle difference nevertheless.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#39

Post by benboughton1 »

Winamp is great, ah the memories. But just like my gripe with video media, is there anywhere to buy plain mp3s for all artists, store them on my hdd and manage them in winamp? Is that still an option in 2020 without a subscription to something?

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#40

Post by MrGilbert »

benboughton1 wrote: post #39

Winamp is great, ah the memories. But just like my gripe with video media, is there anywhere to buy plain mp3s for all artists, store them on my hdd and manage them in winamp? Is that still an option in 2020 without a subscription to something?

Of course. 7digital comes to mind, HDTracks - and, of course, Amazon. The files are all yours to keep.

In fact, I find it easier to get non-drm music files than movies.

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