Winamp Bids a Final Farewell In December

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
45,698
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Winamp Bids a Final Farewell In December

Winamp, the greatest media player the world has ever known, will disappear forever next month.

The end of an era is upon us. "Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013," a message on the Winamp website revealed today. "Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release. Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years."

It's a sad day indeed, and not only for those of us who have been using Winamp since 1997. Try to imagine for a moment the heartbreak felt by the dedicated, long-serving technician forced to write that announcement. The tears streaming down his face as he types; the gentle kiss on the screen as he clicks "submit"; the long walk through the office, wet eyes fixed straight ahead, holding it all in, until finally he's in his car and he breaks down, his body wracked with sobs as the grief overtakes him.

Later that night, he drinks himself into a haze while watching Titanic. "What a waste," he mutters, opening another beer. At 3 am, he drunk-dials Windows Media Player as only time [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GLwA4P3QDk] can heal.

Farewell, sweet Winamp. The bedrock of your presence will soon be mere dust in the wind, but you will not be forgotten.

Source: Marshall Lemon [http://www.winamp.com/media-player/en]
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happy_turtle

New member
Apr 11, 2010
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R.I.P. Winamp, whilst I've not used you in the past five years and not even thought about you in the past four. You were certainly acceptable at what you did. You held the bar for other media players looking to strive for adequacy, and for that we thank you.
 

IanDavis

Blue Blaze Irregular 1st Class
Aug 18, 2012
1,152
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I still remember when I first realized that the Winamp skin was just a series of bitmaps. One of my first attempts at modding.
 

JonB

Don't Take Crap from Life
Sep 16, 2012
1,157
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This is the finest news post you've ever written, and it's an obituary. Bravo.

Watching a serious piece of software history vanish. Winamp is dead. Long live Winamp.
 

Covarr

PS Thanks
May 29, 2009
1,559
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It'd be cool if they'd opensource it or something, but that probably won't happen.

P.S. Thanks
 

Moosejaw

New member
Oct 11, 2010
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Agggggh no! To this day I still have Winamp, I find it vastly superior to iTunes in the way it lets me actually use keyboard shortcuts in my gaming applications. It's also small and tidy. Been using it since '98 when we had our old Pentium 2 Gateway.

I also used ShoutCast and set up a little radio station for my friends way back, because I was the one with the gigantic (quasi-legal) music library. That's quite a shame. They haven't done much to mess with perfection over the years, fortunately, so I never really cared about the updates.
 

Teoes

Poof, poof, sparkles!
Jun 1, 2010
5,174
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But... why? wwwwhhhhhhhyyyyyyyy?

It's always one of the first things I install on a new PC/fresh OS.. and and.. all those nights listening to music with mates and watching milkdrop.. and and.. I can't do this right now.

Farewell, sweet Winamp. I shall keep the install application backed up in as many places as possible forever and ever, so that I may never go without.
 

Absolutionis

New member
Sep 18, 2008
420
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What will happen to all the bloat that the more recent versions of Winamp used to house. Left homeless, they may find themselves migrating to other homes.

Tragic day indeed. Winamp was a nice quarantine.
 

Dr.Awkward

New member
Mar 27, 2013
692
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But, but, but Winamp is one of the few players with awesome plugins! How else are going to listen to old VG music? Through... MIDI? *shudders at thought*
 

Baresark

New member
Dec 19, 2010
3,908
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FUUUUUCK! That sucks, hard. But... why is it happening? It's the best media player out there and iTunes is a serious piece of shit in comparison. I may just have to abandon my little iPod and get some non-brand player, something with drag and drop capabilities. I won't use that horrible bloatware that is iTunes. Terrible interface, slow responding, and I don't buy any music on iTunes. I typically use Amazon MP3 for that.
 

ritchards

Non-gamer in a gaming world
Nov 20, 2009
641
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Bye Bye WinAmp, you were the best... and then VLC came along and basically killed any other player..
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
24,759
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Winamp was always kind of mediocre, and in this day and age it seemed like it had aged terribly.

Still, I wonder what happened.
 

Tastum

New member
Jun 1, 2011
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I still use it because the Classic skin's interface is very compact and I'm used to its flow. Even in a 20px strip I could reasonably control it, leaving more of my 3840x1080 for IM sessions, my IDE, my browser window, etc.

Guess I'd better hold onto the install file, or else find something else that controls that way. I still can't really like VLC's interface.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
2,581
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ritchards said:
Bye Bye WinAmp, you were the best... and then VLC came along and basically killed any other player..
Pretty much. I remember the odd months where WinAmp's entire staff had deluded itself into thinking that WildTangent's interactive visualizations were the wave of the future (basically in-player 3D games driven by your music selection, sort of like a primitive Audiosurf). You momentarily had access to hundreds of shitty games that ran in WinAmp's visualizations window and it very briefly felt like a huge deal.

Then I got tired of vizualizations and realized I didn't need swirly colours to trip out to Astrix or Infected Mushroom. VLC came along and made me realize WinAmp was just so much bloatware.

Farewell, WinAmp. You're a hallmark of the nineties and of the early two-thousands, but you were packed to the gills with useless shit. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
 

Eleuthera

Let slip the Guinea Pigs of war!
Sep 11, 2008
1,673
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:(

I never used any other MP3 player, luckily I still have installers for the last few versions on my system... just have to remember to make a back-up somewhere for my future systems (and the inevitable hdd crash).
 

Phrozenflame500

New member
Dec 26, 2012
1,080
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Covarr said:
It'd be cool if they'd opensource it or something, but that probably won't happen.
If they're going to discontinue it I don't see why not make it open-source.

Either way RIP.
 

JSoup

New member
Jun 14, 2012
187
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Sad, but not surprising. iTunes & VLC cover all the same bases and are better players overall.
 

Bug MuIdoon

New member
Mar 28, 2013
285
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W-W-What..Why?!

WINAMP Winamp winamp

Seriously, why? I still use Winamp. It's by far the best music player out there. It looks great, has a great playlist function, some sweet customization, plays many different file types that a lot of its competition just doesn't, it's equalizers are fantastic. You can tell by using Winamp just for a few minutes that it's made by people who actually give a shit about music. I'm genuinely sad with this news.

I was forced to download iTunes 11 the other day to sort a friends iPod out, and ugh, how the hell that thing is still going I have no idea. Such an ugly mess that's so needlessly updated.

R.I.P Winamp, Forever v5.65
 

Scrythe

Premium Gasoline
Jun 23, 2009
2,367
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Wait, does this mean the end of Shoutcast/Icecast as well?

If so, there goes the best damn thing for self-produced online radio.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

New member
Sep 6, 2009
6,019
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Now we are left with iTunes, which wants to dominate all media on or near your computer. And VLC, which can't remember the last song you listened to.

Winamp, was and is, truly the greatest music player we will ever know.