Winamp 5.5

[Chopper]

This is what's new:

A Completely Redesigned Interface, including Album Art

Multiple device support, including iPods

Access and Share Your Music and Videos with Winamp Remote

Play and Playlist the Best Music on the Web with Media Monitor

Get Artist & Concert News, Videos & more with Smart Search

Enjoy Dynamic Song Recommendations

Experience MP3 Surround Sound Support

Access to Thousands of Online Radio Stations, Videos and More!

50 FREE MP3 Music Downloads compliments of eMusic's 2-week Trial

Auto-Tagger provides automatic updates to file information

Control Winamp From Your Browser with the Winamp Toolbar

I have heard sometimes it is unadvisable to upgrade certain software. I have no problem with the current version. If anyone is currently using the new version any feedback good or bad would be appreciated. Cheers.

[bobbin]

Yes, I have it and have been using it for a week or so now. Almost had to as the pop-up to upgrade came up every time I used it.

But in the install I disabled every "extra" net service they were offering except album art. So it basically acts as did the earlier version. I don't like the trend in media players to hook you up to the net for extras.

BTW, I only use it because of the "play folder" feature. Way easier than highlighting every song on an album.

[Robski]

So why didn't you just ignore the pop-up?

[bobbin]

So why didn't you just ignore the pop-up?

Because you can't "ignore" it. You have to close the window before you can continue.

After a few times, it's easier to hit " download now"

[raro]

So why didn't you just ignore the pop-up?

Because you can't "ignore" it. You have to close the window before you can continue.

After a few times, it's easier to hit " download now"

exactly the same reason for my download. Out of principle I should have punished winamp by total deletion, but then again I am much too convenient to get used to another program...

[cdnvic]

Is it still adware?

[Cuban]

I have no problem with the current version.

Then why "upgrade", generally I have found upgrades benifit the software company and not the user. The new improved "extras" are often in the form of links to stuff that they sell, or that report back or otherwise limit the ability to play music with DRM protection. Pre DRM limited players are just as good.

Out of interest:

http://www.winamp.com/player/version-history

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/3775/139/

http://marv.kordix.com/archives/000435.html

[Chopper]

Thanks for the responses above. I think all said and done I will stick with the current version.

I am also using Jet Audio and Music Match so am spoilt for choice. Though if this is my only problem I do not have any problems. LOL.

[briley]

AFAIK you can block the pop-up by saying you have no internet connection in the general preferences

[Beavis and Butthead]

I hate winamp but have no choice but to use it for certain audio and video types as well as flac conversions. I am using 5.35 and never had a popup for this new 5.5 and thank god for that. I prefer using it for video playing than audio. I say bag the winamp for audio (cept 4 those flacs) and use the awesome itunes

[kayo]

I've been very happy with v. 5.35 for some time now, but yeah.... the upgrade pop up has been annoying me.

I think I might as well go and click it now.

[cdnvic]

I loved winamp at one time until the ads came along. Seems most things that AOL touches turns to crap so I haven't even opened it in ages. These days I tend to use my Linux machine to play music with XMMS, which is very much like the classic Winamp of old. Steaming and video I do with Windows Media Player but I hate it's library and playlist. That was always a winamp strongpoint.

[tominbkk]

Control Winamp From Your Browser with the Winamp Toolbar

I mostly use Itunes now, and control it in my browser with Foxytunes, I love it! (need to use Firefox to use foxytunes). Foxy works with pretty uch all of the other audio programs too.

[Veazer]

I loved winamp at one time until the ads came along. Seems most things that AOL touches turns to crap so I haven't even opened it in ages. These days I tend to use my Linux machine to play music with XMMS, which is very much like the classic Winamp of old. Steaming and video I do with Windows Media Player but I hate it's library and playlist. That was always a winamp strongpoint.

I hate AOL too, but Winamp is nice these days. Winamp 5 brought back the 'lightness' that people appreciated with the 2.x versions, and thankfully they junked the bloated 3.x monster. With 5.5, they've got a full screen 'bento box' skin that works well and the whole program uses about 5-7 mb when playing from the tray (about 12-15 maximized, depends on library size).

I hate the ads as well, but they can be removed with a good HOSTS file. I use the recommended HOSTS file from here and append the winamp ad servers to the end from this post. I noticed some are already on the list anyway, i haven't fully checked for dupes. At least the ads only occur on the IE rendered pages, they're not in some special 'ad box' on the program. Because of that, any ad blocker designed for IE will block the ads in Winamp as well.

I think there's a bit of crap that should be removed, like the tray Agent and some unneeded media library components, but overall it's a nice package. Far better than iTunes for my needs.

And yes, the WMP library sucks.

[kayo]

Veazer, The way you summarised Winamp there is pretty much a reflection of my own thoughts too.

I haven't suffered this barrage of Advertising others mention, but then I disabled the "info" bar, and I never click on the "now Playing" tab, finding it superfluous given Winamps layout.

Oh, and I use FF with Foxytunes too. Which since recently will connect with a decent info page about the currently playing song with one clickable link that pops up when you hover over the song title on your foxytunes toolbar. Which allows me, when I can be bothered, to update any missing info in my ID3tags.

Half the components that appear on the side bar are to me unecessary. I basically don't need any of the web services on my music player. I never use the dashboard, never use Remote Media, Portables, or Bookmarks, so I'd love to see a lighter, sleeker version. There's probably some way to remove them, but i'm not that technologically adept.

But otherwise, yeah, it doesn't drain my machine much, certainly a heck of a lot lighter than WMP11 was

I don't really get what the Agent does. When I upgraded yesterday, it "Recommends" Enabling it. So I did.

All in all, very happy with WinAmp again, though for several years I had stopped using it (with v. 3 onwards I think)

[Veazer]

...Half the components that appear on the side bar are to me unecessary. I basically don't need any of the web services on my music player. I never use the dashboard, never use Remote Media, Portables, or Bookmarks, so I'd love to see a lighter, sleeker version. There's probably some way to remove them, but i'm not that technologically adept...

It's pretty straightforward, just bring up preferences when winamp is loaded (CTRL-P) and scroll all the way to the bottom on the left hand side. Most of the unneeded plugins are in the Media Library section, as you noted. You can uninstall directly from winamp preferences.

The only downside to uninstalling this way is you can't easily get the component back if you realized you did need it. If you want to disable something without removing it, just take note of the plugin's filename (listed on the right side) and rename it in the winamp plugin folder (ie 'ml_nowplaying.dll' --> 'ml_nowplaying.dll.disabled') If you realize later that you need it, just change the name back. The plugins folder is at 'C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\', assuming you installed in the default folder.

Good luck!

[Tywais]

I hate winamp but have no choice but to use it for certain audio and video types as well as flac conversions.

You might want to check out foobar2000 if you haven't already > http://www.foobar2000.org/

It's free, lightweight and handles many formats. Just not fancy as WinAMP but works well and is fast.

[Veazer]

I hate winamp but have no choice but to use it for certain audio and video types as well as flac conversions.

You might want to check out foobar2000 if you haven't already > http://www.foobar2000.org/

It's free, lightweight and handles many formats. Just not fancy as WinAMP but works well and is fast.

If you're a headphone user, be sure to check out the Dolby Headphone hack for foobar that's out there. Very nice.

Foobar would be my second choice, but it takes a lot of customization to get it just how i like. I really think foobar would have a better following is they distributed pre-customized versions. They could hold a little Foobar contest and maybe add the winners circle to the downloads with a brief summary of each. I've seen people do some fantastic layouts with foobar but not reveal exactly how they did it.

[raro]

got one issue with Winamp...I added some songs to the favourites, however, winamp doesn't find those songs anymore although the file location has not been changed.

Other question: for the star ranking, does winamp write this in the metadata of the mp3 file or in a separate database? I.e. if I move the file, will the star ranking still be there?

moreover, winamp makes me feel old....most of the genres I never ever heard of....

[Veazer]

got one issue with Winamp...I added some songs to the favourites, however, winamp doesn't find those songs anymore although the file location has not been changed.

Other question: for the star ranking, does winamp write this in the metadata of the mp3 file or in a separate database? I.e. if I move the file, will the star ranking still be there?

By favorites, do you mean bookmarks? They are actually intended for storing online streaming stations. It should work with local files though, can you edit the bookmark and verify that the path really is correct? If you found a bug, they'd probably like to know. It would be better to create a playlist of your favorites.

Rankings are not stored in the metadata, and this has been the subject of some rather heated, if not childish, discussion in the winamp forums (here). Some users like us want it stored in the metadata and others don't want 'pre-rated' music flooding their library every time they get some shared music from other users.

Another user tried to make their own plugin to solve this problem, but i never tried it because the development seemed to stop. check here for that.

[kayo]

...Half the components that appear on the side bar are to me unecessary. I basically don't need any of the web services on my music player. I never use the dashboard, never use Remote Media, Portables, or Bookmarks, so I'd love to see a lighter, sleeker version. There's probably some way to remove them, but i'm not that technologically adept...

It's pretty straightforward, just bring up preferences when winamp is loaded (CTRL-P) and scroll all the way to the bottom on the left hand side. Most of the unneeded plugins are in the Media Library section, as you noted. You can uninstall directly from winamp preferences.

The only downside to uninstalling this way is you can't easily get the component back if you realized you did need it. If you want to disable something without removing it, just take note of the plugin's filename (listed on the right side) and rename it in the winamp plugin folder (ie 'ml_nowplaying.dll' --> 'ml_nowplaying.dll.disabled') If you realize later that you need it, just change the name back. The plugins folder is at 'C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\', assuming you installed in the default folder.

Good luck!

Veazer, You are a gem!

Thank you. I'll have a play around over the weekend and post results back here.

(foobar's my back up music player too. Wonderfully light, flexible and easy. Bit like VLC, but then for music.)

[kayo]

Right. Had a little play around with the plug in s folder as you suggested.

have succesfully removed (disabled) the "now playing", Dashboard, and "remote access thingie".

Also as I was playing I noticed you can hide the external mp3 player menu when nothing is connected.

So I now have a tidier Library menu, but more interestingly, it seems to have speeded up the whole application. Particularly when I switch between windows from other programs. There used to be a bit of a time lag (a couple of seconds) that I now do not have.

Thanks very much for this thread and all the posters.