End Of An Era: Winamp Media Player Is Officially Shutting Down

[evilsatan]

If you were around the Internet back in the late 90s or early 2000s then Winamp will no doubt be a name that you’re very familiar with. Once the go-to media player of the early generations of MP3 users, Winamp grew big enough and quickly enough to get the attentions of AOL, who paid a not inconsiderably $80 million for it back in 1999.

The problem is that since that acquisition went through the AOL management teams have been systematically taking Winamp’s popularity and ripping it up, with the media player now a fair way down the pecking order that sees apps and services like Apple’s iTunes lead the way.



Now, in what feels like a move that was almost inevitable, AOL has announced that it will be shutting down Winamp.com and removing the once popular Winamp media player from circulation for good. If you want to be able to use Winamp moving forward, we suggest you get the latest build downloaded before December 20th when everything goes away for good.

Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, the Winamp media player 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.

Those are the sad – or rather depressing words – on the download page of Winamp as of now.



It’s a sad day for those of us that were around when Winamp was one of the first things we installed on a new machine, but that being said we have to admit to not having use the app for some considerable time. In a day and age where not only does iTunes provide most of the functionality that people require, as well as giving them somewhere to buy their music in the first place, the niche for apps like Winamp just continues to get smaller. Throw streaming services such as Spotify and Rdio into the mix, and it’s not difficult to see where it all went wrong for Winamp.

Source

[evilsatan]

This used to hold my library pre-iTunes!!

[stimpy]

I remember using Winplay 3 - before Winamp was even born. Winamp was revolutionary in its day.

[Brydo666]

Been using for over a decade, has always been my media player of choice.

That said, I've been guilty the past six months of hardly touching anything other than Spotify.

[Mule]

How does AOL still exist? Everything they touch turns to shit.

[CallmeGoose]

Winamp really did kick the llamas ass!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mickey]

I will carry on using it.

I was pissed off when the sound/noise trackers went out and mp3s came in. But wow what a difference winamp has made

[blacksheep]

I'm sure I saw something about Microsoft (or someone) trying to buy it recently?

[AD]

I still use Winamp to this day and I am gutted AOL has fucked it up....

RIP Winamp....

[pratman]

but it kicks the lamas ass..............oh man what a shit day, firstly my neighbour dies......and now winamp this day i declare bullshit day

[coin-op]

Winamp really did kick the llamas ass!


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Or whipped it anyway

[reverend]

Jeez I actually ran this from the 0.9 days - it doesn't seem that long ago but I just saw the date - where the hell did 16 years go?!

[{{909}}]

I still use it today, still not found a replacement that has the same facilities to allow me to easily delete mp3 from within the player.

[AP0ll0UK]

How does AOL still exist? Everything they touch turns to shit.

Indeed, what a set of tw@ts!

Winamp was great back in the day. It didn't take long to download over 56k, it was light and didn't use many resources, and it had a cool selection of plugins. I still have it on my laptop and will be keeping a copy in my Dropbox but it will be sad to see it fall off of the internet

[rudey]

still use it

[Doctor Who]

still use it and its nice and compact

[Mystical_2K]

was great back in the day but havent used it for a long time so wont bother me too much, shame as it was a great piece of software back in the day

[tombott]

Back in my Windows days this one of the first programs I'd install on a Fresh build.
I have the Winamp app on my Android phone, still a great app.
When I switched across to Linux the program I missed the most was Winamp. The closest I could find was XMMS, which was modelled in Winamp.

Spoiler:

[EvilBoB]

Used to love Winamp. It would run on anything and the visual plugins were awesome.

[Geezah]

I still use Winamp along with Shoutcast or Icecast to broadcast radio shows.

Time to archive it