Winamp 5.9 RC1 has been released
Last year, we reported that Winamp would be making a comeback soon. And it's here, Winamp 5.9 RC1 has been released.
This is the first update for the popular music player since Winamp 5.8 beta, that was released in 2018.
What's new in Winamp 5.9 RC1
The music player has improved Windows 11 compatibility, support for vp8, https://streams, playback of .itz, .mdz, .s3z & .xmz compressed modules. The program now has a Podcast Directory. The browser tab has been removed from the Bento skin. Aside from these changes, the update fixes some memory leaks. The help link in the application directs users to a new online Help section.
According to the release notes, Winamp has been migrated from VS2008 to VS2019. Winamp now requires Windows 7 SP1 as the minimum required operating system, i.e., it drops support for Windows XP and Vista.
Though it wasn't mentioned in the change log, I noticed that the update also removes many of the old skins.
Issues in Winamp 5.9 RC1
The migration process from VS2008 to VS2019 has resulted in some known issues. The Milkdrop plugin's visualization works, but it has issues with some presets. Eleven of the worst affected presets have been removed, but are expected to be fixed in the Winamp 5.9.1 update that is slated for a future release. View File Info doesn't work, and ReplayGain calculation is broken for Vorbis files, .OGG. These bugs are also expected to be fixed in the next update.
Winamp 5.9 RC1 breaks compatibility with old plugins, including those made by former developer DrO (creator of WACUP), such as the Jump to File Extra (JTFE). Some required DLLs may not load on Windows 7 - 8.1.
Upcoming changes to Winamp
Winamp's developers have also published a list of upcoming changes that they plan to add to the software. This includes native support for more audio formats (opus, ogv/ogm, TS, H.265, HLS, VP9, etc.). MusicBrainz or MusicStory will replace Gracenote features such as Autotag, CDDB. There are plans to add more default services including Lyrics, and Jamendo.
Refer to the release notes for more information.
Warning: Winamp's forums do not have an HTTPS website.
Download Winamp 5.9 RC1 Build 9999 from the Winamp website. The installer for the new version has been flagged by a few antivirus services on VirusTotal, the developers have indicated these are false positives. You can download Winamp 5.666 Build 3516 from the official website. Malwarebytes seems to detect the installer of the old Winamp 5.666 as malicious too.
The music player is quite usable for the most part. This is more of a maintenance release than a feature update. So far, it doesn't contain any of the bloatware that were expected to be bundled into the program, or any NFT stuff that was shared by the company's Twitter account earlier this year. A comment from the lead developer suggests that optional online services could be added to Winamp in the future, but for now they have no details to share about it.
If plugins are important to you, I'd recommend readers to either stick to the old version, or switch to WACUP (WinAmp Community Update Project), I prefer the latter as it is still maintained.
Have you tried Winamp 5.9 ? Share your thoughts about it.
Winamp 5.9 FINAL (non RC) release posted Sept. 9:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=458120
also recently available from Majorgeeks site as well:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/winamp_5_full.html
Soy usuario de WINAMP desde siempre…. he probado MUSICBEE que lo encuentro excelente… pero, es ruso…. quizás sea un trojano como lo es AIMP3 (que controla tu ordenador)…
Bien por Winamp…. espero la versión definitiva y depurada….
Still stuck with the last version of Spider Player
and happy with it =o)
Well now, that was a great player. Still miss it.
Heeeeeeey, flashback! I used Spiderplayer back in ummm 2007-08 or something.. I also had another snazzy player called Xion. Goddamn I was cool. Nothing beats MusicBee today though.. If you have a very large collection it’s a must.
AIMP 5.0.3 meets my requirements well, so I personally see no need to change to a dysfunctional alternative.
View file info works for me, but with the modern skin.
While you’re at it, also install Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Java, LimeWire, Ad-Aware, Ask toolbar, K-lite codec pack and Bonzi Buddy from download(dot)com.
From the looks of it, there’s still a lot of issues to be worked out. If you’re into testing unstable software, go for it. I’m going to wait for something feature complete and stable.
Still no OPUS and xHE-AAC support which was probably the most sought after feature.
I still use Winamp everyday! I updated to this version on my test machine and it isn’t stable enough for daily use. I will stick with WACUP (WinAmp Community Update Project).
WinAMP is essentially dad, very few people nowadays keep their music locally and listen to it.
Absolute most people listen to whatever junk Spotify is throwing at them without even attempting to remember what tracks they like/dislike.
That’s the reason development has slowed down 100-fold and most youngers don’t even recognize its name.
The leo’s lyrics plugin and the virtualization still make me smile to this day. Best player ever made.
WACUP has evolved significantly since the following article …
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/02/23/new-winamp-community-update-project-wacup-preview-released/
Get WACUP here …
https://getwacup.com/
I use 1by1 with BASS extensions, because it is full screen (so readable) and a very convenient folder player (no playlist-shit).
I found out that you can use a .m3u file with radiostreams collected and outputted from Foobar-PC-version, to play radiostreams in 1by1 on Android (Foobar on Android does not accept its own radio-streams-playlist-output from the PC-version). So this playlist is helping me.
In the past I used RadioSure to play radiostreams. Strangely internet-radio-players all have the minuscule bad readable window like WinAmp.
Apart from that RadioSure seemed perfect (huge database + recording separated songs), however the author was unknown but from somewhere in east-europe.
Since begin of this year RadioSure and its forum have vanished from availability, the enormous radio-database is tried to continue by community efforts.
Does anybody know an alternative for RadioSure (with recording separate played music-numbers) and/or have a means of reading the RadioSure (community-maintained) database ?
Warning for those who are eager to get it quickly! Don’t. It breaks several good plugins like jump to file extra. If you want to revert back to previous version, then good luck as winamp unethically switched all old winamp download links to this new one – i found my one from here to go back: https://www.filehorse.com/download-winamp/download/
Oh God, why..
It really whips the llama’s ass. Thats why.
I won’t to download software that is flagged by Virustotal. If this is a false positive, then the developers need to understand and fix it.
Because Virustotal is absolute perfection and we should all condemn software vendors for Virustotal’s bluders.
Makes TOTAL sense. ??
Using Winamp just for fun. Version 5.8 covers all my requirements, so no need for newer stuff.
For daily usage i prefer Foobar2000.
Winamp 5.666 plays my local music files just fine and the library function organizes everything correctly.
If it works, don’t fix it.
I “don’t do ads” so I’ve no need for my music player to have internet access.
I use Musicolet on the Android, again no internet access, no ads, just local files.
PS Unless your PC has a sound system comparable to the 505W 5.1 with 10″ sub system on mine, don’t talk about sound quality.
505w with a 10″ sub…. Yes… I do have a Logitech Z5500 sound system. :)
But it doesn’t work for all music files with 5.666
Have you tried musicbee?
For me, its the best
Here is our review: https://www.ghacks.net/2015/04/21/musicbee-review-the-ultimate-music-player/