Why Winamp is just meh

[Ultrax]

This is my first forum post. This looks like a nice community!
I thought I would just ramble about how bad Winamp is, at least in my case. Now firstly, this has nothing to do with my hardware, as a 3 GHz C2D and 4 GB of RAM is more than enough to use Winamp. In addition, I'm only 13 so I just missed the glory days of Winamp. With that said, let's get into it.

Winamp is not a bad media player. It's very nice, in fact. Sure, VLC and others have surpassed it, but it is still a good media player with good features. But unfortunately, when Radionomy bought it out, that's when things went south. Development and improvements to Winamp have been very few and far between if any, and the Winamp web page has said "There's More Coming Soon" for over 2 years now. It's pretty clear that they don't care much anymore. When Winamp was owned by Nullsoft, it needed improvements, but Radionomy, obviously, couldn't care less. The only redeeming factor of Winamp today are those cool visualizers. Other than that, it's a mess. Now, it could be the version I'm using, but it's a pretty recent version, if not the latest. Here are the issues I faced:

Slow, laggy UI,
Crashes when I try to rip a CD,

and above all, CD playback lags when browsing the web.

Windows Media Player 12 here in Windows 7 does a much better job of everything - and it can rip CD to more formats, and do so without crashing.
I think Radionomy needs to put some more love into Winamp, because it's currently a sad mess.

 

[Raincloud]

I thought I would just ramble about how bad Winamp is, at least in my case. [...] In addition, I'm only 13 so I just missed the glory days of Winamp.

You didn't miss that much. Winamp 2.x on Windows 98 was awesome with its visualizations and all; I guess you could call those the glory days. But it went downhill from there: Winamp3, which was a nice idea but they eventually abandoned it and resumed developing Winamp 2 (hilariously to the point where the last 2.x version is more advanced than the last 3.x version) then they skipped Winamp 4 because they didn't like the sound of "Winamp 4 skins" and the history ends at version 5 which looks pretty bad. I always used the Modern Skin but it never looked right, not even with the "Good Ol' Winamp" colors. The Classic Skin for some reason had a non-functional repeat button, also it was too small for the screen. I just accepted that Winamp is dead. I think I still have version 2 on my Win98 computer but I haven't booted that in years.

Winamp is not a bad media player. It's very nice, in fact. Sure, VLC and others have surpassed it, but it is still a good media player with good features.

I recommend XMPlay if you want a capable replacement. Personally I'd keep VLC for video only.

But unfortunately, when Radionomy bought it out, that's when things went south. Development and improvements to Winamp have been very few and far between if any, and the Winamp web page has said "There's More Coming Soon" for over 2 years now. It's pretty clear that they don't care much anymore. When Winamp was owned by Nullsoft, it needed improvements, but Radionomy, obviously, couldn't care less.

At least NSIS is still being developed, kind of.

The only redeeming factor of Winamp today are those cool visualizers.

Now and then.

Other than that, it's a mess. Now, it could be the version I'm using, but it's a pretty recent version, if not the latest. Here are the issues I faced:

Slow, laggy UI,
Crashes when I try to rip a CD,

and above all, CD playback lags when browsing the web.

Windows Media Player 12 here in Windows 7 does a much better job of everything - and it can rip CD to more formats, and do so without crashing.
I think Radionomy needs to put some more love into Winamp, because it's currently a sad mess.

I would never use Winamp to rip a CD, ever. A specialized ripping tool would serve you better.

 

[MourningStar]

I still use Winamp. I have tried to replace it many times and found many I like. I did try Xmplay. Unfortunately, one thing that the ones I would have replaced Winamp with DID NOT have (and is a MUST HAVE for me) is the player controls in the taskbar which I always use when the app in minimized.

 

[goodlad]

I'm using winamp 5.63, I've no issues with it - other than the fact its bloated compared to the older version releases. I use winamp only for playing audio files. I have tried lots of alternatives none of them fit the bill like winamp. For videos I would prefer either VLC or SM Player.

 

[Indianatone]

Winamp is certainly not meh. I have used it for almost 20 years in every PC I have had. Currently I run the last version with a lyrics plug in and a visual graphics display. I have thousands of FLAC files I ripped from CD's and Winamp plays them flawlessly. Your system may be letting you down as you are lacking in ram and Windows 7 is probably using a large amount for itself. Winamp shines in a multi core system with a hi end sound card. I would not use anything else except AIMP which has some nice cassette desk and reel to reel skins.

 

[Skittler1987]

Is Winamp even updated anymore? I switched to AIMP a long time ago and haven't look back.

 

[NICK ADSL UK]

Is Winamp even updated anymore? I switched to AIMP a long time ago and haven't look back.

winamp has not been updated for years as it was Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014.

don't forget to use stream ripper so that you can record what you hear to the hard drive
Download Streamripper from SourceForge.net

 

[Jeyneko]

I remember Winamp was good, had a lot of customisation and flexibility, something missing in a lot of today's software (see: every decent web browser)