I'd forgotten Winamp even existed. Nice to see the old favourites still around.
(Winamp that is, not the poor programming).
An update to Winamp closes a terrible trio of critical security holes in the popular media player application. The rather old-school vulnerabilities involve a brace of integer overflow cockups in the in_avi.dll plug-in and a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the in_mod.dll plug-in library. All three flaws create a …
I used to use it back in the day before it got bought by AOL, but once AOL got hold of it (and all the original authors resigned) it just went downhill so fast... Coincided with my final push to be linux-only so went to xmms (which was essentially a winamp 2 clone).
I remember AOL being really slow to fix bugs, but really fast to add new ways of sticking adverts or bundling crap with winamp. Such a shame... (I liked the winamp 5 media library, and the skinning opportunities, and the whole skinning ecosystem around it)
The nullsoft shoutcast streaming server is still popular though, despite not being updated in years. Includes some iffy overflow bugs that AOL hasn't fixed since they took it over, resulting in some of my fave net radio stations going offline randomly until someone kicks the streaming server.
Why does whatever AOL touch turn to crap. It's like the reverse-midas touch...
I'm the last to approve of AOL, but my experience of Winamp is far better than that of certain apple shaped media software.
I'm all Linux at home, and am resigned to using iTunes lookalikes (Banshee, Rhythmbox) since I found XMMS2 a pain to find, then set-up on recent versions of Ubuntu and XMMS3 was just not very user-friendly (for my wife).
I still like and use Winamp on Windows machines at work. Their best feature IMO has always been sorting how I want it (Sort by > Path & Filename), but their playlist features are also great. I use it to create playlists for use on my phones, and their support of varied formats is also good. When I re-encoded music to the excellent he-aacv2 format for playback on my phones back in 2007, Winamp was the only player that supported the format.
As for support, once I got my recent defect noticed, it was fixed in what I would call reasonable time and is in the latest version... [aacdec] Detection of parametric stereo for AAC files made with older encoders.
qmmp on Linux is much nicer than xmms, and supports winamp skins. Great hotkey support, too. From nautilus, I just right-click and enqueue to qmmp, or play with qmmp. Google around and you can find how to replace banshee as the default player.
But yeah, if I'm on win7 I still use winamp. I don't install video or modern skins or a lot of the other crap. Stays out of the way, low footprint, syncs playlists to portables, good hotkey support, great for ripping/reencoding, all the old plugins still work (control from wireless joystick), and I'm using a vis from 1995. I've never seen the adverts ppl are complaining about, but then I don't care about their media browser.
joejack: "But yeah, if I'm on win7 I still use winamp. I don't install video or modern skins or a lot of the other crap. Stays out of the way, low footprint, syncs playlists to portables, good hotkey support, great for ripping/reencoding, all the old plugins still work"
Which is exactly why I still use it. Global Hotkeys work great, even in full-screen ancient apps (think Diablo 2). The thing to love is startup time, low CPU use, and next to no memory footprint. Compare this vs Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, or (ugh) iTunes (to name a popular trio) and you feel better about running old-school.
It is easy to install Winamp without the adverts. Most of them are just in the installer. And then a little bit of tweaking in the player kills off some of the "more info" features. AOL has not got their claws into this one - still plenty of independence with the devs (I am also not an AOL fan)
Still a great little player. Can't find anything else to support so many different formats, and none of that iTunes bloat. (Or the SHOP it is all based around...)
And isn't this "news" from El'Reg a little old? This release has been out since June!!
Replying to my own post that is still in moderation... My mistake. I didn't realise that the thread linked by El'Reg had updates tagged on the end of it. So ignore my rubbish about the "June Release". (Even better would be if a mod could just delete my last sentence above there)
Winamp still rules though!! Nothing is as organised for a big music collection.
If I'm upgrading, I expect the installer to look at my current preferences, and use them, something that winamp seems extremely reluctant to do - it appears to be waiting for me to get careless, so that it can usurp all my audio associations - which last time took me a while to sort out...
I've never bothered to find another media player. I hate using WMP. When I got an iPod a few years ago, I didn't want to use iTunes because it has more bloat. After playing with a few programs, I found Winamp had the capability of adding music and movies. I usually just do the minimum install possible so I don't get all the crap on my Desktop. Milkdrop is awesome for certain situations.
Although, when watching TV episodes, Winamp likes to move from Full Screen back to Windowed mode once one file ends and another starts. I'm forced to use WMP if I want to watch a season of Squidbillies. :\
Yes, I know it hasn't been developed in years, but I needed a lightweight graphical audio player for my Arch Linux-powered Eee 701SD netbook. At least I could find my way around XMMS, the interface works just fine on an 800x480 screen, and there's a wide range of plugins, scripts and add-ons (e.g. player controls for GKrellM) for XMMS.
Nowt wrong with being "old-skool" in one's tastes... unless your beloved program has security holes you could drive a bus through, naturally ;-)
I just gave up on WinAmp -- went to get the latest version after being nagged to death to do it by NullSoft, only to find it crammed with so many unwanted extras that I deleted within an hour. Fetched down the latest VLC, for old times sake, and find it takes Winamp's place perfectly. The only thing I hate is the little bubble from the status bar popping up when a new track comes on. I thought I'd sorted that, but it's back.
"The rather old-school vulnerabilities involve a brace of integer overflow cockups in the in_avi.dll plug-in and a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the in_mod.dll plug-in library."
So, the problem was with DLLs was it? In other words a problem on Windows platforms... ever so secure, aren't they?
No the problem was integer & buffer overflows which just happen to be in the dlls. Nothing to do with Windows and everything to do with bad coding by the Winamp devs.
Your platform of choice has it's own version of dlls which are no more or less secure. Libraries are libraries and we all need them.
I've paid the $20 or whatever years and years ago and, apart from a few video codecs that it only pretends it knows what to do with, it has stood the test of time for me at least. Excellent media library, converts files, rips to FLAC & mp3, ipod support, etc. not to mention the most consistantly trippy plug-ins.
Cold boot windows, right click a folder in explorer, play in Winamp: >7k tunes load and play in seconds. Try that with itunes or WMP. It can even make a half-decent go at randomising a playlist instead of just the lame 'shuffle' play option. (all are lame IMO if you have 'too many' tunes)
PS: Anyone that installs anything by fast-clicking next next next deserves everything they get.
sonique was beautiful, though I've always been a Winamp user, probably since 1998 or so. I still install it now for the reasons mentioned above - the small footprint is what I want from a music player, that's all I'm doing with it.
How about kjofol? Another player from the same era but with a more ugly interface!