Installing Winamp for your
Windows or Linux PC in 2020!
Winamp...it really Whips the Llama's Ass! That odd phrase was heard by an entire generation of MP3/OGG/WAV/FLAC (choose your preferred music file) users in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Winamp is still considered by many (including myself) to be the best online music player ever created is still available for your convenience to use on both Windows and Linux! But whatever happened to Winamp? Well, it is still kicking in a variety of formats and ways, so you can still listen to your music with that lightweight and easy to use UI. I view Winamp as one of the prime ways to take back your media from big corporations. After all, you bought all of those CDs! And those MP3s from Amazon and Bandcamp and Traxsource. Time to make your own playlists and load them up and jam like it is 1998! Here's the major versions of Winamp and Winamp-identical music players in the new millennium.
- Winamp 5.8 (NOT recommended!)
Winamp is currently owned by Radionomy, a company that aside from releasing one version with virtually no changes two years ago for Windows 10 entitled Winamp 5.8, has left the software to rot and remains closed-source. The main developers of Winamp keep a cursory amount of support because they bought the company for popular online radio service Shoutcast. It's serviceable as a program still in 2020, but not the best you can do. You can download it here: Winamp 5.8
- Winamp Community Update Project
This project by former Winamp Developer Darren Owen (aka Dr. O) has allowed for great strides to be made in the original Winamp codebase. Dr. O has taken it upon himself at https://getwacup.com to let individuals use a more updated version of Winamp in 2020. It's still a work in progress, but runs much better than Winamp 5.8, despite missing a few features like being able to rip CDs. Dr. O's WACUP comes with a bunch of really good plugins like Album Art, updated sound processing, and quite a few extra perks for any longtime Winamp fan. WACUP and Winamp both don't play well in WINE, and never got a Linux version of the program, so Linux users may be frustrated with some of the quirks of difficulty dragging screens or having Winamp in the notification tray when using Wine with Chicago95 in Linux. So there is the next option for Linux users...
- Audacious
Audacious is the Free and Open Source version of Winamp classic for Linux and Windows. It has support for a variety of Winamp themes, and the UI looks just like Winamp classic. However, many of the other features of Winamp, such as custom themes and plugins aren't supported and some of the UI doesn't quite jive with the whole program (for example, the Album Art display feature). But for the most part, it pretty much looks and feels just like Winamp on the UI side, and that's pretty cool for the long-term health of Winamp really. You can download it in many Linux distributions using
Sudo apt-get install audacious
or by simply visiting to their website here.
- Webamp
This neat project from the Internet Archive has created Winamp in a Javascript web browser player. Now you can play all of the great free and public domain music hosted on the Web Archive in a player that looks just like Winamp!
Main Cons:
- Unfortunately, Winamp is only for the desktop, not for mobile phones where we do most of our listening on. An Android app that syncs with Winamp was developed early on in the Android lifespan and has not been updated in years. It won't run in Android 10. Your best options for something similar to Winamp for Android (which was itself quite a good music player) is the VLC app. While not perfect, it's free and open source, so you know your privacy is trusted.
Winamp Skins:
- What's Winamp without some really cool skins? Check out any of these links for some ones I think are way cool for school. You can find a bunch of old ones on the internet archive as well.
Next Up: Using IRC to talk to friends (and strangers!)
