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Winamp Shutting Down On December 20
New submitter Cid Highwind writes "If you want to download the latest version of Winamp, you'd better do it soon. According to a new banner on the download page, AOL will be pulling the plug on the iconic llama-whipping music player in a month. 'Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release. Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.' Ars Technica ran an article last year detailing how the music player lost its dominance."
Foobar2000 is great!
No more llama ass-whipping :(
After all these years, the Llama will finally have its vengeance...
In "classic" skin you have the good old nice and small interface, and it has excellent 24bit support... Fraunhofer Institute codecs... all sorts of goodies. I wonder what will happen to people who (recently) bought the Pro upgrade...
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
i guess i was the only one left using it??
what should i go to now? I mostly played the shoutcast stations along with the music i converted from itunes a few years ago. I also use it exclusively on android.
XMMS is long dead. And Audacious has relegated the winamp interface to second class status.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
My very first light shows we're done using AVS Studio plugin. It was sick. You could render text, create complicated intricate patterns, specify coloring directly (not just a pass filter over an existing image) and even adjust all of it in real time on a second monitor. Modern VJ apps like arkaos and resolume don't even dent the surface of the on-the-fly stuff you could do in AVS, even if they do have more features overall.
Local music(to upstate NY). http://gnarfel.com/ radio.
Just do it.
...that someone who had been working on it "accidentally" leaks the source.
Just an updated version of NSIS that supported MSI, MSP and MSU files would make NullSoft a profitable company within months.
I hate to admit it (okay, not really) that I knew this was going to happen when AOL bought WinAmp... since it was AOL that was waning in popularity and WinAmp that was flying high.
It took almost 15 years for your prediction to come true. I don't consider that a useful prediction.
I hate AOL. I have always hated AOL. AOL shareholders can burn in Hell.
A Big Fucking Fuck You!
QMMP on the other hand seems quite alive.
pfft. wesley willis has been really whipping the llama's ass in heaven for the last decade. same with horses, tigers, ponies, you name it.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Your loss.
No sig today...
... for taking a great product with a large and growing user base and a lot of potential, then going virtually nowhere with it for year after year after year, until the only thing left to do was to kill it.
R.I.P. Winamp, you helped define the 90s and let the way for compressed digital formats.
Let's hope all the specialist plugins for all the legacy/specialist file formats that have been created over the years find a good home with ongoing support.
Get your Winamp here:
http://www.oldapps.com/winamp.php
I think that AOL may have reached the point where they've started outsourcing management to the same senile old people who are their core dialup subscriber base.
It would be nice if companies would automatically open source abandonware, even if they have to strip half the code of anything that infringes on outside patents. Of course, it would be nice if companies would do a lot of nice things. But they don't, and won't - because companies aren't nice.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
If you're looking for lightweight on Windows, check out xmplay. It's sitting at 334.4k. Sounds good, supports a lot of formats, has plugins, skinnable, integrates into your context menu if you want...
Not affiliated with them but I've used their program happily for years now.
http://www.un4seen.com/
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
ICQ and AIM are both OSCAR-protocol based; but, to the best of my knowledge, the only common treatment was that AOL was a dick about any 3rd-party implementation of an OSCAR client. Aside from that, AIM basically pretended that ICQ didn't exist, and vice-versa. AOL always was a somewhat puzzling company.
http://www.aimp2.us/
Been using it for a while. It is like WinAmp without the crud.
Winamp was the first player that could handle massive playlists. I could drag a network folder with over 80 GB of music and it would populate the playlist in seconds. I could then randomize and walk through that list without repeats for days. It also played skipless so that live albums didn't have annoying breaks. New players today still can't do that. Sigh. Their android app is pretty good too. I guess I will jump to amazon now. Their cloud playing is great.
-- soldack
Who's going to really whip the Llama's ass now?
Winamp... I don't understand why people think it is going to suddenly disappear. I haven't needed to update winamp in years, I only have a newer version because I sometimes lose the installer. What exactly is going to change that will make me need a new music player? My music is still all in mp3 format, I don't use any of winamp's online services. The program is finished and complete. I don't need support from AOL and I never did. In a few years there will be new developments and winamp will slowly become obsolete, but those same new developments will result in new software being developed that caters to them. I really don't see the problem here. Winamp will be able to play me mp3s until I no longer need to listen to them or my OS no longer has windows 7 compatibility mode.
AC .. you beat me to it. How can we backup the skin / skin database before the web site shuts down?
supports a lot of formats
The only reason I've used Winamp in the past few years is that most of the players for music formats related to classic game consoles have been released as input plug-ins for Winamp. Does XMPlay support NSF (NES), GBS (Game Boy and Game Boy Color), SPC (Super NES), SGC (ColecoVision and Sega), GYM/VGM (Sega logged), PSF (PS1), USF (PS2), GSF (Game Boy Advance), and 2SF (Nintendo DS)? On the XMPlay page, I see "Game Music Emu input plugin", which covers the NSF, GBS, SPC, SGC, GYM, and VGM, but not PSF and friends. What worries me more is that the page also states a policy of making the input plug-in SDK available only to approved developers: "The input plugin SDK is currently available only on request. If you would like to create an XMPlay input plugin, please get in touch."
In case folks were wondering. Frankel and some of the original crew moved on to creating a DAW called Reaper flying under the company name Cockos.
www.reaper.fm
If Winamp is only worth $6m today, I'm pretty sure he could buy it back. There's so many things in reaper that have been missing in Winamp for years (namely good ASIO support, the ASIO output plugin for winamp stinks)
Does anyone know if this means they are pulling the plug on Shoutcast as well ? It only says "...associated web services...".
Please don't buy PowerAmp.
thx
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
Can you buy Windows 8.1 for your PC/laptop?
That will work until AOL sends a notice of claimed infringement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_(media_player)
Skinned media players were awesome in the Windows 98 era. Nowadays OSs look fine enough that skins are a nuisance.
But... the future refused to change.
Winamp will no longer be available at www.winamp.com. Mildly annoying, but old software NEVER disappears from the internet. I can still get copies of many dead programs such as VersaCheck 1.0, DVD X-Copy, even M$ Flight Simulator. Licensing can prevent use of these old versions, but if you happen to have a valid license some basic google-fu should get you the installer (or installer ISO) you need.
Winamp will still run on the tens of thousands of systems that it's installed on. Users can continue to enjoy their digital music collection while thinking pleasantly about whipping a llama's ass. The icon will remain on the desktop. The Start Menu item will not disappear. MP3's will not magically be set to use a different default application to open.
In the end, I don't think this is going to cause any great deal of discomfort for the internet community. Hell, might not even get noticed right off (if not for /. shining a spotlight on it).
My EYES, the goggles, they do nothing. Had to tell it to use the default xmms skin. Yeah, I'm weird that way.
No loss. As long as you use FLAC.
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
Who's going to really whip the Llama's ass now?
Winamp... I don't understand why people think it is going to suddenly disappear. I haven't needed to update winamp in years, I only have a newer version because I sometimes lose the installer.
You can get whatever version you want here: http://download.nullsoft.com/winamp/client/
I kept this URL since I had some problem (I can't remember) with v5.622+.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Thanks for all the good years. Keep whippin' the Llama's ass.
There's no way that AOL is going to just give away the code even if they're not currently planning on using it -- the best chance is to find out how much money they'd want in exchange for the source if the buyer'ssole intent is to crowdfund its purchase in order to open it for historical archiving & public use. Tech history orgs might even be willing to donate because of WinAmp's historical importance.
Someone with experience crowdfunding &handling the open-sourcing of proprietary projects should be involved, so the chance isn't blown by inexperience. For example, they might know whether AOL is more likely to agree to the sale if the logos/name or other elements are left out of the deal.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)