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Winamp Shutting Down On December 20

Posted by Soulskill on from the llama-finally-whipped-back dept.

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."

43 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. FB2K FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Foobar2000 is great!

    1. Re:FB2K FTW by Russ1642 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No it isn't. You collect pieces of Foobar and put them together to try to get something that acts sort of like a music player.

    2. Re:FB2K FTW by baka_toroi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Try managing 150000+ files on Winamp and tell me how it goes. Now try that again with Foobar.

    3. Re:FB2K FTW by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No it isn't. You collect pieces of Foobar and put them together to try to get something that acts sort of like a music player.

      I think that we are seeing the fundamental collision between the "Freedom is good, freedom indistinguishable from Turing completeness is better!" camp and the "I've got a task to do here, Make It So." camp...

      In the context of a relatively prosaic problem like music playing, I'm more inclined to sympathize with the latter camp (though not to the extent of some shit like iTunes); though my sympathy for the former camp leads me to desire an ideal solution that would consist of a sane set of default pieces of Foobar, more or less approximating WinAmp, with the option to go down to the basement and tamper with the advanced EQ settings, custom plugins, audio-oriented LISP implementation, etc.

    4. Re:FB2K FTW by Hsien-Ko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      VLC's terrible for music. Ever noticed the pitch bending? Bad playlist controls? Long initialization times? Lack of seamless transition?

    5. Re:FB2K FTW by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Indeed.

      My media player of choice these days is MPC-HC for casual listening with XBMC for dedicated playing. MPC-HC, while not a perfect interface, does the job and doesn't have these strange delays and buffering that VLC runs into, while at the same time supporting bit perfect playback via WASAPI.

      XBMC is beautiful, but if it had a minimalist mode in addition to its 10 foot UI I'd probably use it exclusively. It also does an amazing job at cataloging your media if you want it to.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    6. Re:FB2K FTW by epyT-R · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A society that only satisfies the lowest common denominator is no society I'd want to live in. foobar is targeted at digital audio fans. Everyone else uses whatever default their OS assigns.. It's nice to know that foobar is quick and efficient even for those who don't have that many files.

    7. Re:FB2K FTW by EvanED · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A society that only satisfies the lowest common denominator is no society I'd want to live in. foobar is targeted at digital audio fans ...and of course every digital audio fan worth their salt has at least 100,000 files. </sarcasm>

      I'm not saying that software should satisfy only the lowest common denominator, just that I suspect 150K files is a pretty severe abnormality even among music fans who love piracy. Personally, I very briefly tried foobar2k, and didn't feel like putting in the effort to figure out how to make it do what I want, so I just use other programs. And on normal-sized collections, they work plenty fine.

    8. Re:FB2K FTW by ottothecow · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yeah. I always loved the winamp media manager.

      It was pretty powerful, and even without the features, I liked the fact that the active playlist was held completely separate from the library (as opposed to say...struggling with itunes). You could search your library at will without changing anything in the playlist. They were in separate windows and the paradigm was pretty clear--you play music in the playing window, you search for music in the library.

      Then, the playlist had ITS OWN INTERNAL MINI PLAYLIST! You could queue up specific tracks to play next (using j or q keyboard shortcuts IIRC). This great, because you could have your playlist on shuffle, but still be able to specify what song you want to hear next, all while still keeping your playlist sorted by artist/album/whatever. Infinitely better than software where the solution to "shuffle" was to actually shuffle your current playlist which makes browsing more difficult.

      I will miss Winamp, but I must confess, I use it far less these days. Spotify has changed the way I listen to music--I no longer acquire music permanently and listen to much of it at work (vs using winamp for many many years as a student). This may not be a good thing...right now I can browse through my music folder and go on a nostalgia trip, much like my parents can flip through their records and CDs...with spotify, I will have to actually remember what I was listening to 15 years ago instead of stumbling across it when I set winamp to "shuffle all". But, it means I have cut out winamp. At work, I use Spotify...and at home mostly listen to music on my HTPC through spotify or XBMC. Winamp only gets used when I am using my desktop for something that doesn't have its own sound (like gaming or editing videos)...which is pretty much only when I work from home.

      --
      Bottles.
    9. Re:FB2K FTW by jimshatt · · Score: 4, Funny

      Pft, that's NOTHING! I listen to 28 weeks of music for breakfast!

    10. Re:FB2K FTW by jimshatt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Winamp had plugins for formats not anticipated by the operating system. I once (LONG ago) wrote a simple plugin that executed .bat files, so I could queue OS commands in my playlist (shutdown at the end of the list, etc.). Pretty cool (if I might say so myself :) ).

    11. Re:FB2K FTW by Nyder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Try managing 150000+ files on Winamp and tell me how it goes. Now try that again with Foobar.

      I've been using winamp since i discovered it in the early 2000's and I still prefer to use my own directory setup to any file/music management interface a player has.

      Sorry to see it going, but then I always use the free version, so I'm part of the problem I guess.

      I'm more surprised that Aol is still around honestly.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    12. Re:FB2K FTW by locopuyo · · Score: 4, Funny

      I only have .16 as much music as you, I feel so inferior with my mere 35 days worth of music I will never listen to.

      --
      The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
    13. Re:FB2K FTW by almitydave · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...(been collecting CD's for the last 3 decades...

      But CDs haven't even been around for 3... Oh... I feel old.

      --
      my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
      I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
  2. A sad day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No more llama ass-whipping :(

    1. Re:A sad day by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed, looks like AOL finally managed to kill it.

      Lets face it, everyone thought this was going to happen years ago when AOL first bought it, its amazing its JUST NOW being shut down, though according to the article it appears to be a profitable business unit and AOL is just shutting it down to cut off its own nose.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    2. Re:A sad day by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 4, Informative

      AOL has a profitable business unit?!!

      AOL is still in business!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!!

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
  3. A victim of animal cruelty legislation... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    After all these years, the Llama will finally have its vengeance...

  4. WinAMP still rocks by CanEHdian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:WinAMP still rocks by dstyle5 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I bought the Pro upgrade last week. Maybe I should pick up some Blackberry stock this week while I'm at it.

  5. Oh Man- My Lightshow by gnarfel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  6. Open source it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just do it.

    1. Re:Open source it. by Unknown+Lamer · · Score: 5, Informative

      They did released Milkdrop under the BSD license a few years ago, there's a clone for OpenGL. XBMC uses it, and it can even load Milkdrop 1.x presets (totally just grabbed a huge set of those and am living like it's 2001 right now). I'm unaware of anything that can emulate AVS presets unfortunately.

      Audacious can load Winamp 2.x and XMMS skins too. I'm still using it after a few years of flirting with other media players (ok, I may have given up and used xbmc on the teevee machine, but that's because it has a nice party mode and milkdrop!).

      --

      HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
  7. Here's to hoping... by Forbo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...that someone who had been working on it "accidentally" leaks the source.

    1. Re:Here's to hoping... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...that someone who had been working on it "accidentally" leaks the source.

      That might actually be a worse result. Unless there are Winamp-specific features/interfaces that are either difficult to clone or near-impossible to get full compatibility with, without the source, leaked-but-unlicensed source would just cast suspicion on any winamp-like projects, and fall into a difficult-to-develop for legal grey area (since the source leak itself would be hot, patchsets would presumably be legal; but actual compilation would require hanging out in warez circles and leave the resulting build illegal to distribute.)

      Kind of like the issues XBMC had, back when they actually supported Xboxes. Their codebase was fine; but the SDK components required to actually do a build, and possibly the builds themselves, depending on exactly how hungry MS legal was feeling, were always illicit and kind of a pain to deal with.

  8. Re:dear aol, by mlts · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just an updated version of NSIS that supported MSI, MSP and MSU files would make NullSoft a profitable company within months.

  9. Re:the Winamp interface lives on! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    QMMP on the other hand seems quite alive.

  10. Re:I stopped caring about winamp in early 2000's by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your loss.

    --
    No sig today...
  11. Shame on AOL by DigitAl56K · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... 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.

    1. Re:Shame on AOL by DigitAl56K · · Score: 4, Informative

      When Winamp first appeared it was one of the first mass market players to handle MP3 playback at a time shortly after the FHG encoder began to be distributed and competitors like XING, LAME, etc. were just starting to appear. Hard drive storage capacities were still tight - you wouldn't want to fill your disk with CD quality WAV files, but people could store many albums with MP3s without resorting to burning CDs. Napster/gnutella/Frostwire/etc. would come along soon after and transform the way teenagers of the period acquired music. Later, subscription services etc. would be born.

      Winamp may not have been around throughout the _entire_ decade, but towards the end of the decade your average joe was getting online, and Winamp was there leading the way for digital music formats that are still popular well over a decade later. Times move fast in computing, but there are probably not many Windows users here who haven't popped open Winamp at some point, cranked up their speakers, and popped open the visualizer.

  12. Download Any Version of Winamp by bobbutts · · Score: 5, Informative

    Get your Winamp here:
    http://www.oldapps.com/winamp.php

  13. Re:Huh? Color me confused. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  14. I remember when Winamp ruled the earth by wjcofkc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:I remember when Winamp ruled the earth by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not a matter of nice, doing something like that costs money. If it were as simple as dumping the code on the web, a lot might actually do that if just for the PR boost, but going through the code to make sure you didn't accidentally publish something that was later bought up by some patent/copyright troll is an expensive and risky prospect.

      If you are asking people to take a risk for you, it's only fair that you compensate them for the risk.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
  15. Re:Awww by Internetuser1248 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  16. Where are they now? by t0qer · · Score: 3, Informative

    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)

  17. What about Shoutcast by Kulfaangaren! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Does anyone know if this means they are pulling the plug on Shoutcast as well ? It only says "...associated web services...".

  18. Re:Dang my luck by unixisc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can you buy Windows 8.1 for your PC/laptop?

  19. DAE remember Sonique? by Requiem18th · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  20. Re: I stopped caring about winamp in early 2000's by zevans · · Score: 4, Funny

    No loss. As long as you use FLAC.

    --
    "... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
  21. Crowdfund the code's purchase, then open it by TheSeatOfMyPants · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!)
  22. Re:Aimp is a great replacement by svobodniy · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a fake adress with the fake donate on the site. The real adress of AIMP project is http://aimp.ru/

  23. Re:so what should i be using now? by Calydor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For the time being why not just keep using WinAMP? They're not remotely disabling all installations of the program, they're just removing all ability to get more updates or even to get the install file. From them, at least. I'm sure it'll be floating around for ages.

    If WinAMP works perfectly for you right now it's a reasonable bet it will continue to do so for at least a few years down the line. It's not like the mp3 spec is changing weekly, for instance, and that collection of music sitting on your hard drive? So long as you don't re-rip it to the latest and greatest codec those files aren't going to change. If they work today in WinAMP, they will work in WinAMP in twenty years.

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-