Print this article | E-mail this article | Comment on this article

Winamp Gets 10th Anniversary Update

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

October 10, 2007, 12:26 PM

Today at 10:00 AM EST, Nullsoft and AOL released the latest version of Winamp. The timing of the 5.5 release was deliberately chosen (10/10, 10:00) to commemorate the software's tenth year as a leading media player.

Some more features have been added to the popular utility, including a GraceNote powered instant playlist generator called "More Like This," as well as a feature that allows users to access their Winamp content through their next-generation game consoles.

A browser-embedded toolbar further helps users control Winamp from wherever they choose.

Since Nullsoft is a Time Warner commodity, advertising has taken a slightly more important role, with standard and customized advertising packages available directly through the Winamp media player.

Winamp 5.5 10th Anniversary Edition can be downloaded from FileForum.

What are your memories of Winamp?

Add a Comment (19 Comments)

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

By improvelence

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 7:02 PM

Ok, so I have been on here bashing the direction Winamp had headed in for a long time. But I must say...this is a step ahead. I remember when this didnt even have an installer and it was ugly as sin...

Score: 0

By Hawk999

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 5:38 PM

I remember when could register Winamp. you would get a code to use it. :-) And then it became free!!

Score: 0

By maximum

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 9:24 AM

...so when are they gonna update nullsoft.com?

Score: 0

By GrantTLC

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 6:23 AM

Happy 10th anniversary, Winamp!

I've been using it since the 2.x days, happy to find a great free alternative to the default Media Player. What really sold me on Winamp (apart from the Llama) was Geiss and, later, Milkdrop - two cracking visualisations that Winamp has hypnotised entire rooms of people with at various parties I've held over the years!

As for the future, I'm now using Linux and Amarok has turned my head with its simplicity. But I'll still keep the Llama installed on windows, just in case. ;)

Score: 0

By bobthegoat2001

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 1:40 AM

I remember when using it on my 486/66 that I had to turn the quality down for MP3's or they wouldn't play without skipping. My Pentium finally allowed me to play it at full quality.

Score: 0

By SRR

edited Oct 11, 2007 - 1:02 AM

Isn't it odd that Justin Frankel's latest endeavor REAPER a audio recording app went 2.0 on the same day, about the same time?

Score: 0

By Michael.Hatamoto

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 12:14 AM

Ten years already? I have been using Winamp on my Windows machines for the past five years at least, but didn't realize it has been 10 years total.

Congrats to the Winamp crew!

Score: 0

By yountmj

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 11:34 PM

Though I use Media Player Classic for all of my video playback needs, Winamp has been one of the only constants of my computing life since '97 as far as audio files are concerned.

Sure, it's gone through its rough periods (experimental plug-ins, Winamp 3, etc.), but I've always been faithful and stuck with it.

I've tried others throughout the past decade... most notably Sonique way back when. I've dabbled with Microsoft's various incarnations of Windows Media Player, but always found it lacking (but fairly sufficient). About the only thing I use iTunes for is to check playlists and ID3 tag information on my iPod, where ml_iPod handles all transfers to the iPod through Winamp. ModPlug used to handle all of my MOD files years ago, but no more. The rest, Winamp handles with aplomb... always has.

Thank you Justin Frankel, Nullsoft, and AOL for helping to provide the soundtrack of my life for the past 10 years.

Score: 0

By PSXp-ONE

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 10:59 PM

WOW!! has it been ten years that I've been using this? GEEZ!!!! Nullsoft! congratulations for always keeping up the good work and for providing Winamp all this years...THE BEST AUDIO PLAYER EVER!!!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Oct 10, 2007 - 10:09 PM

Haven't actually used WinAMP in a while.

* Love the new Bento (Large) Theme!

* Love WinAMP Remote. Using it now. Fab.

It's quick, it's nice looking, and it has a hell of a lot more functionality than the last time I used it.

This almost hurts, but:

Bye-bye Foobar2000.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Oct 11, 2007 - 4:26 PM

Whee! We have a converter!

/Loves Winamp a little too much

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 12, 2007 - 9:17 AM

Now if I could just get Orb working.

The songs from my home PC show up, but when I try to play them, they all show up as "Error clip" video files.

*sigh*

Score: 0

By bigsexy022870

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 5:05 PM

Downloaded it today and very happy aside from a few issues. First off I like the new interface, more so cause they kept what worked from the previous design. So i didn't have to learn it from scratch. I haven't tried all the new features but they sound decent. The album art needs some work. Some albums it can't find. But it's just eye candy, you don't need it. Scolling thru the playlist is still choppy and needs work. But they have never got that right b4. I've wanted a new interface for a long time. Time changes and winamp never did. Thankfully they did something new for once. Hasn't crashed yet, and doesnt eat to much ram. So all in all a great player.

Score: 0

By seier

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 4:59 PM

I liked that it was $10 dollars vs. something like $40 dollars for Mod4Win to play my mod files.

Score: 0

By Scary Guy

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 3:09 PM

Still great despite the fact AOL owns it. One of the few software products they have bought out that hasn't gone to hell (I'm looking at you ICQ and Netscape).

This doesn't mean I'm not switching to an open source alternative (foobar 2000) but I am taking my sweet time about it (I'll admit I'm lazy).

Score: 0

By GS5

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 3:09 PM

Still my fav windows player ever. But I can only imagine what it could have been today if AOL hadn't gotten their grim reaper hands on it.

Score: 0

By serrebi101

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 1:40 PM

I remember that someone installed it strangely on my first laptop and I had to enter some run command to even get at it. I've been using it ever sence, 1.9x I believe.

Score: 0

By dracodos

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 1:10 PM

I agree it was a great media player, the first of it's kind to support many formats and configurable to a fault: skins, tons of useful plugins and enhancements like like the visuals, TV card support. You could make it as large, or as small as possible. I recall it used to fit nicely on a 1.44 floppy disk (remember those days?!)

These days WinAmp has become my alternative to iTunes. I still use WMP somewhat for movies and DVDs. I've stripped down WinAmp to what i needed, supports just the audio formats i use today, no more funky visuals or skins. Just a nice simple media player that works and runs right off my iPod.

Score: 0

By AaronDobbins

posted Oct 10, 2007 - 12:57 PM

It really whips the llama's a$$!

I can remember way back when it became all the rage. I don't think I used a different media player throughout college. I liked it because the extra features were optional and you could strip it down to the bare essentials to play MP3s and not have all the other junk.

Score: 0

Dec 1 - 7:38 PM ET Intel tries to turn the tables on AMD in document discovery dispute

Dec 1 - 6:59 PM ET Palm to restructure yet again, may cut more jobs

Dec 1 - 4:58 PM ET Blockbuster downloads headed for more devices via Live Mesh

Dec 1 - 4:55 PM ET AOL's PlaySavvy speaks to game-shy parental units

Dec 1 - 4:41 PM ET Less bad news than anticipated for the semiconductor industry in 2008

Dec 1 - 3:51 PM ET 'Xohm' makes way for 'Clear,' as Sprint/Clearwire merger moves ahead

Dec 1 - 2:01 PM ET Chasing down the latest Cyber Monday tech deals

Dec 1 - 12:50 PM ET Will 'Cyber Monday' fare better than a weak 'Black Friday?'

Dec 1 - 12:38 PM ET Microsoft Cashback goes offline to Black Friday shoppers

Dec 1 - 11:19 AM ET DTV broadcasters could make another transition to mobile next year