Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

Hacker News

	Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013 (winamp.com)
	907 points by bulibuta 234 days ago \| comments

bbx 234 days ago | link

Was using Winamp 5 for the past year but recently switched back to v2.95, which is allegedly the best version out there.

Although it's 10 years old (!!), it's still the best music player available: lightweight, fast, responsive, and kept simple.

I had hopes for the Windows 7 Media Player. But it turned out to be a dreadful experience.

  Me: Can't I pause that song by hitting space?  
  WMP: No, there are no keyboard shortcuts!
  Me: I wanna play all the songs of this folder!
  WMP: Ok, but I'll mess up the order! By the way, are you interested in purchasing
  more songs from this artist? Cause I got a VirginMega link just right here!
  Me: No thanks...
  WMP: Why not? I mean, iTunes gets away with it, why can't I?
  Me: I just want to play some music.
  WMP: Really?? JUST that??
  Me: I wish.

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sandGorgon 234 days ago | link

Did you ever try Foobar 2k - its arguably a better replacement for Winamp on windows

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teh_klev 234 days ago | link

I agree, I've used foobar2000 [1] for over ten years when Winamp (my previous goto music player) started to get all crashy and hangy for no good reason. It's pretty solid, can handle massive playlists and has nice clean and simple UI with no cruft. My only wish is that they did foobar2000 for Android.

[1]: http://www.foobar2000.org/

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delluminatus 234 days ago | link

I think foobar2000 was created by a (the?) developer who worked on Winamp many years ago, before it was bought.

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pit 234 days ago | link

Yes, Peter Pawlowski. According to Wikipedia, he is "a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft."

EDIT: He's also been working on an audio player called Boom: http://perkele.cc/software/boom

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kevingadd 234 days ago | link

Peter was notable for maintaining a lot of the audio output backends for Winamp. People who had problems with their Creative Labs sound cards (read: basically anyone who owned one) causing playback glitches in Winamp would post about it on the Winamp forums and peter would get really cranky and eventually figure out how to fix it. (:

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kristofferR 234 days ago | link

TheSOB88, you're hellbanned so barely anyone can see your comments.

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Achshar 234 days ago | link

What's this about? Parent's unsername is not TheSOB88.

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Anderkent 234 days ago | link

You have to enable a setting to see [dead] posts, and you can't reply to them. That's why people post as siblings, hoping that the banned person will come back to the thread and see their name.

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darkarmani 234 days ago | link

It's to let him know that he triggered hell banning somehow. it's super annoying, because you don't know if you are hell banned.

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kristiandupont 234 days ago | link

That's the point of it.

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Helianthus 234 days ago | link

HN has an amusingly childish policy of hellbanning individuals it deems inappropriate or otherwise objectionable--hellbanning hides the banned account's comments to everyone unless you set "showdead" to true in your account preferences.

Some users have started kindly informing the hellbanned posters that, for whatever reasons, don't seem to notice that no one ever responds or upvotes their comments.

If I may get on my soapbox (if I wasn't already), I find the whole thing symptomatic of Silicon Valley's culture of networking hell and reputation management. It's a policy of elitism; a policy that disenfranchises in the name of some fictional notion of quality; a policy that demonstrates just how rotten the tech industry is at heart.

Why do I go that far? Because community culture is indicative of so many things. This is the community and atmosphere that pg set up, that pg creates, moderates, and maintains.

pg may not be formally 'responsible,' but he's certainly at the head.

Because I'm an asshole, but not enough of one to get hellbanned (at least on this account), I am in some state of suspension: an artificial delay imposed on every request.

(That's what I don't get about HN's moderation: what, did you think I wouldn't notice that you're essentially trying to herd me like chattel? I stubbornly keep this account kicking out of simple contrariness.)

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eksith 234 days ago | link

That's all well and good, but let's take a look at what the trigger was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615120 . If you ran a community -- and realistically there's nothing stopping you from doing so -- would you tolerate that kind of nonsense? I know I wouldn't want to hang around there if you did.

You're right (to continue going slightly meta), it's a policy of elitism, but in the same vein as Wikipedia. They too are still around as a result.

Side note: Quality is quantifiable to a degree and is by no means a fictional notion.

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Helianthus 234 days ago | link

If the mountains of downvotes don't do the trick you can ban accounts directly. Hellbanning is cowardly and ineffective.

This isn't Wikipedia, it's a discussion forum--and the discussion pages on Wikipedia are moderated fairly and openly.

I didn't mean that quality as a whole was fictional, I meant that the notion of quality this policy is attempting to enact was fictional/unattainable.

Flame wars still happen. People still complain about the nastiness of HN comments. It's a discussion forum: angry conversation is what it's for.

Hellbanning does absolutely nothing to improve 'quality of discourse,' it just makes this place nastier.

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Intermernet 234 days ago | link

Discussion forums are for discussion. Angry conversation is an emergent property of some discussions, on the net or off, but not the sole response to anything you may disagree with.

My own opinion on hell-banning or any other forms of account "punishment" is that it is, as you say, cowardly and ineffective, as long as the user has no idea that it has occurred. Either inform the user, or completely ban the account. Otherwise you're leaving people screaming into the wind when you could just tell them no-one is listening.

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kristiandupont 234 days ago | link

The whole point is that it's not about punishment, it's about preserving the tone.

Telling somebody "you've been banned" will make them upset. Some people get severely offended and they want to fight. So they go and create new accounts and start over, or they seek revenge in other ways. It can be very time consuming to deal with. Granted, this will still happen because some people will realize that they've been hellbanned, but the ones that simply get the impression that people aren't responding to their trolling will get bored with it and go away. Which is a win.

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notJim 234 days ago | link

Agree about Foobar. It's about the only app from Windows that I miss when using OS X.

Anyone have a Mac player they use with similar philosophy/featureset to Foobar?

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wires 234 days ago | link

cog http://cogx.org ; less features IIRC

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notJim 234 days ago | link

Heh, I'm listening to the album in their first screenshot. Gotta be a good sign.

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drakeandrews 234 days ago | link

Does it fade out songs when you pause them?

If so, where can I download it and where can I donate to whoever wrote it?

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jarek 234 days ago | link

Yes, preferences > playback > output and select output method DirectSound http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Pre... http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/foobar/foobar-5_files/image00... ; http://www.foobar2000.org/ ; http://flattr.com/thing/51681/foobar2000-freeware-audio-play...

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mtrimpe 234 days ago | link

TheSOB88, you've been hell banned for almost half a year by now.

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PavlovsCat 234 days ago | link

also nice: http://www.aimp.ru

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mikestew 234 days ago | link

WMP is why I bought an iPod. As a Microsft employee at the time, I struggled longer than any mortal should to get WMP to sync music to my 2003-era Windows Phone. I eventually realized that any kind of synchronization and general usefulness in using WMP with a Windows Phone was nothing but marketing lies. So one day I said, "get in the car, honey, we're going to buy iPods."

iPods led to iPhones, which led to iOS development and Macs, to the point that there are no more Windows machines in the house and I haven't done Windows development in about five years.

All kicked off by the fact that MSFT couldn't make a software music player that didn't suck.

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ygra 234 days ago | link

Ctrl+P was the shortcut for Pause, if I remember correctly. WMP wasn't that bad, but Foobar fits my needs much better.

For a ten-year old Winamp I'd have my doubts about Unicode support at the very least.

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twentysix 234 days ago | link

You should check out aimp[1]. It looks and performs like winamp and has similar functionality.

[1] http://www.aimp.ru/

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ansgri 234 days ago | link

Unfortunately, recently they started messing with the design and the result is much worse than transition from Winamp 5.3x to better versions.

Multiple playlist tabs, though, are great. Fortunately Audacious has them too.

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m_ram 234 days ago | link

I used Winamp heavily until the version where they added video support. That version was extremely buggy for me and I used the previous version for several years until I found Foobar2000.

It looks like 2.90 was when they added video support:

"added integrated full featured video support (NSV and DirectShow (AVI,ASf,MPEG,etc))" -- http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=130748

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venomsnake 234 days ago | link

Give AIMP a shot. Same as winamp2 but with built in flac and cue support.

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username42 234 days ago | link

I have also an old version of winamp because a melomane of my friends told me the transitions between songs was better in old winamp than in recent one.

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fddlr 234 days ago | link

I use Windows 7 WMP every day because the media keys on my laptop only work with that and I have never ever encountered any of those problems you are talking about.

- I can pause/unpause with space.

- The song order remains after I drag in the folder.

- Right after the very first start (i.e. on clean win7), it asks you if you want to see ads of songs of similar artists you listen to.

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rplnt 234 days ago | link

There's Winamp Lite for you. I don't miss anything from the pre-3 times.

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zacharycohn 234 days ago | link

I always preferred 2.89, but that's mostly just me being picky.

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throwmeaway2525 234 days ago | link

You just weren't meant for each other!

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AsymetricCom 234 days ago | link

The nice thing about old, simple software is that the attack vectors are often known publicly and are easy to work around. In the instance of Winamp, older versions of 2.x have a buffer overflow exploit in the playlist parsing. So.. don't load playlists from untrusted sources, something most people never do anyway.

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jaysonelliot 234 days ago | link

I just switched back to Winamp after getting fed up with the latest release of iTunes.

At least it's a real application that I can download and own for myself, and doesn't stop working just because it's no longer being supported.

This is a great example of why I don't move all my data to the cloud, or use browser-based apps for things that matter to me.

Hopefully they'll release the codebase to the world.

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rm999 234 days ago | link

> This is a great example of why I don't move all my data to the cloud

Music is a great use-case for keeping data in the cloud. You can have a consistent music library and can use any player client-side. Personally I prefer the spotify "all-you-can-listen" model, but I have a bunch of MP3s that aren't on spotify that I seamlessly stream from dropbox (either to winamp or the spotify client, which allows you to sync local files).

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smrtinsert 234 days ago | link

There is so much lost when moving to the cloud.

Off the top of my head: You tie your data to one provider instead of simply physical media, you lose discoverability (will your kids browse your album choices 30 years from now?), exporting/importing quality is at the mercy of the provider (for example Amazon dropped several dozen mp3s when I migrated a few gigs to Google), and of course you place your data at the mercy of a business, (is any tech company eternal and/or always interested in providing cloud services?)

The cloud is way overdone, after giving a variety of services a go over the last few years, I'm actually pulling back.

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fletchowns 234 days ago | link

That's why you run your own "cloud" music service. Personally I use Subsonic, and it is amazing.

http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp

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err4nt 234 days ago | link

I used to run Subsonic, now I'm loving http://plexapp.com and the (paid) iOS app.

I'm also an Rdio and Netflix subscriber, but running Plex on my server allows me to 'roll my own Netflix' and stream movies and music to my iPad or other computers, or even from my server to any computer in the web browser. I'm happy.

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antihero 234 days ago | link

Man, I can't get Plex to run. It looks so excellent but whenever I try and play anything I get "Media player error! Resetting" and then nothing happens.

Edit: Rebooted phone and it works now. Holy shit this is cool, and I can even share my media library with friends!

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gcb1 234 days ago | link

so, all that gets you is a interface and some search?

i just have an apache serving all my videos and a bookmark on any device browser. click and play. for android i use mx player.

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sandGorgon 234 days ago | link

Plex is the only solution that I have found that seamlessly plays video on my flatscreen through my mobile with the content being served from my laptop.

Before you ask - yes I used to be running xbmc, minidlna, etc. previously. No, they are nowhere as good (actually, to rephrase, the client-server model is not xbmc's focus, which is completely wrong IMHO).

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themstheones 233 days ago | link

So you can set up apache to host movies on a home network, then stream them with VLC? That sounds like a fantastic solution. Is there a solution for playing music this way on something resembling a stereo that supports playlists?

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sciurus 233 days ago | link

Also there's Ampache.

https://github.com/ampache/ampache

https://web.archive.org/web/20130302160313/http://ampache.or...

https://web.archive.org/web/20130306044144/http://ampache.or...

Within the last year the project ditched their website in favor of just using github. However, strangely they didn't migrate any the content from their website to it.

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rjbwork 234 days ago | link

I also use subsonic and love it. It's unfortunate that the author moved to a monthly/yearly subscription model. Luckily, I am grandfathered into a lifetime premium membership with a free dynamic DNS address, which is really nice.

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nnnnni 234 days ago | link

Or you can use Supersonic or Madsonic, which are forks without the "forced donation for open source software" problem.

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lazylizard 234 days ago | link

i liked http://www.pancake.org/zina too...

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adamwong246 234 days ago | link

MPD ftw

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acheron 234 days ago | link

Sounded really good until I got to the part about needing to pay a subscription fee.

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fletchowns 234 days ago | link

It's ONE DOLLAR per month. ONE DOLLAR! And it's only if you want the extra features. Would you rather have ads be inserted between your songs or something? The development of the app needs to be paid for one way or the other.

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csmuk 234 days ago | link

One dollar is too much for something that was a solved problem (media sync).

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fletchowns 234 days ago | link

How is that a solved problem?

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csmuk 234 days ago | link

How is it not?

Plug shit into PC, two way sync. WinPhone and iOS do this fine.

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antihero 234 days ago | link

Ah yes, the old "sync 600GB of MP3s onto a 32GB device" trick.

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csmuk 234 days ago | link

Yes because you really need 600GB of mp3s which on the back of an envelope calculation is over 1000 days of listening for 8 hours a day at a reasonable bitrate with no repeats...

I'm sure, at amazon prices which is a fair approximation including CDs, you didn't spend $100,000 on them either.

This is really not a problem. Well it is but only greed created it.

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antihero 231 days ago | link

You miss the point. The idea is not to be able to listen to all music, but any music from one's collection.

Putting this down to greed? What an incredibly short sighted, ignorant thing to say. Perhaps we should have stopped at black & white feature phones because only greed could mean we wanted to access the whole internet on the move?

It isn't a "solved problem" because there are still issues with the solution.

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WoodenChair 233 days ago | link

You don't understand: All music must be in FLAC because MP3/AAC/WMP just "doesn't sound right".

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themstheones 233 days ago | link

I just copy it all over the internet. I can't countenance making multiple trips with a usb key, or even worse lugging around an external hard drive.

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ozh 234 days ago | link

Which has to be reason #2 or #3 why I hate iTunes with passion.

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euank 234 days ago | link

You don't need to. Since subsonic is Open Source, there's naturally multiple forks with the licensing code removed. The best fork, which also adds features, is madsonic[0]. I recommend it. In addition, if you already have subsonic, the license code is simply a check if your password = the md5 of your email. So using "example@example.com" and "23463b99b62a72f26ed677cc556c44e8" will make it think you're a valid subscriber and give you all features.

[0]: http://www.madsonic.org/

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pacificmint 234 days ago | link

> the license code is simply a check if your password = the md5 of your email

That used to be the case, but the newer versions actually phone home and verify the license.

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euank 234 days ago | link

Thanks for the information. It was true the last time I used subsonic, but that isn't all that recently. Still, I have no doubt it wouldn't be hard to remove it from the code.

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cheapskate 234 days ago | link

echo "127.0.0.1 subsonic.org" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

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wattengard 234 days ago | link

Sorry but the front of that page made me throw up a bit in my mouth and just close it back down again...

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72deluxe 234 days ago | link

I like how they used a massive picture and then scaled it down in the IMG tag instead of just resizing the picture and putting it on the page. Very entertaining...!

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toomuchtodo 234 days ago | link

We all need to eat.

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nitrogen 234 days ago | link

But it seems those music listeners in this thread are the type that prefer a single up-front cost over a recurring subscription.

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vacri 234 days ago | link

You don't need to. It's a freemium model - paying a subscription gets you some extra features, like apps for mobile.

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ams6110 234 days ago | link

From the site: Based on Java technology

Ugh.. lost me. I don't run Java anything anymore.

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smoyer 234 days ago | link

I hear a lot of people claim that, but the reality is that many people run applications they don't realize are Java, and a lot of the infrastructure you rely on runs Java behind it.

As a JavaEE architect/developer, I whole-heartedly agree that you shouldn't run Applets in your browser anymore. In fact, unsigned applets will no longer run after January of 2014, which will break a lot of the banking infrastructure and a couple important client applications at my day job.

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laumars 234 days ago | link

This isn't even a java applet. It's java server side code. There is absolutely no reason for the former poster to boycott this aside from ignorant pig-headedness (and this is coming from someone who isn't exactly a fan of java himself)

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potangina 234 days ago | link

what is that?

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lelandbatey 234 days ago | link

Well then, I guess you're going to miss out on some great technology for a pretty dumb reason.

Java may not be amazing, but it's hardly "so bad I literally won't ever use it."

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airtonix 234 days ago | link

not really... there are better alternatives that don't use java.

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fletchowns 234 days ago | link

Thanks for the worthless comment!

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thibaut_barrere 234 days ago | link

I think he has a tiny point actually: I saw a number of people around me removing Java (or not installing it on new computers) after the numerous vulnerabilities reported recently. Just a data point but well - I wonder if this could affect sales of java-based product etc.

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ams6110 234 days ago | link

This is why. The never ending stream of security issues. The installer hijacking my browser search bar. The never ending nags about new versions, which hijack my browser all over again. It's just not worth it. I have removed Java from all my computers and will never install it again.

I fully realize many web sites and services are implemented in Java, that's not what I was talking about. I will not install or run anything that needs Java. Period.

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laumars 234 days ago | link

You can run Java applications and secure them from the web. Just disable Java applets from your browser (most have an option in the browser itself; those that don't will have extensions to do the same - like you would to block Flash plugins)

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mnw21cam 233 days ago | link

Just don't install a java plugin for the browser. Simple.

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dkersten 233 days ago | link

I've never ever had this problem, but I also run OpenJDK, so...

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mnml_ 234 days ago | link

right, you don't run Java. Java is everywhere so unless you live in the jungle I'm quite sure you use it everyday.

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coldtea 234 days ago | link

One can very easily not run any desktop Java apps, and not run any applets. That's what he meant, and that's what matters.

Who cares if he still uses some website that is build on servlets server side, or if his tv/car/fridge has a Java running CPU? That's totally besides the point.

Java is not "everywhere". In fact it's getting nowhere fast (including it's use on microcontrollers and devices). The only exception is server side, where it's also not what it used to be these days...

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maemilius 234 days ago | link

Java may be going nowhere fast as a language, but the JVM isn't going away anytime soon.

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coldtea 234 days ago | link

If you combine Scala, Clojure and Groovy, you still don't have enough momentum on the scape of what Java had or even Python.

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pkolaczk 234 days ago | link

Scala is more popular now than Python was at the same age, and it is used for much more serious stuff than currently Python is.

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leoedin 233 days ago | link

What does "serious" mean in this context? Is it another way of saying high load? Enterprise? Is scientific computing serious? How can you say that one platform is used for "much more serious stuff" when you almost certainly have no idea what 99.9% of all python (or Scala) installations are being used for.

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MrGando 234 days ago | link

Do you happen to have a source for this (genuinely interested) :)

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bphogan 234 days ago | link

You're really missing out. Subsonic is amazing. You should at least look at it a little bit.

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dkersten 234 days ago | link

Serious question: why?

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serf 234 days ago | link

Well, I wouldn't let Java stop me from using something, but to play devil's advocate :

"Because I have a resource limited platform in which I cannot handle many dependencies."

Subsonic on a Cubieboard is a dreary task.

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dkersten 233 days ago | link

That sounds reasonable enough, but doesn't really explain the statement "I don't run Java anything anymore."

Limited resource platforms can run java just fine - but large software with many dependencies, sure, that's a valid concern.

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danudey 234 days ago | link

All my iTunes Match content came from my computer, can be copied to my computer, and can be backed up independently.

There's no reason that The Cloud and Owning Your Files has to be a binary choice. The Cloud can be a great compliment to your local file storage, rather than a replacement for it.

Another example: store your music in Dropbox, which clones it to all your devices (where applicable), and then use Tunebox (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tunebox-dropbox-music-player...) as your frontend. Now you have a 'cloud' music service where you control the content, someone else handles the distribution, and everything is cloned locally on all your machines (for your other players to use). Then you can trivially back up your music files from Dropbox to a local backup (or a third-party backup service if all you want is some form of company-independent redundancy.

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chaudruc 234 days ago | link

Or you could use the new free webapp I just launched (shameless plug) http://Streamboxr.com - responsive webapp that can play your dropbox music on any device.... no install needed, free.

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rrrhys 234 days ago | link

Cool idea!

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eddiedunn 234 days ago | link

I use ownCloud[1] . A bit of a hassle to install, and not as streamlined as e.g. Dropbox to use, but well worth it if you wish to have your own, free and open source cloud solution.

[1]: http://owncloud.org

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SkyMarshal 234 days ago | link

Try Mopidy [1], it's a version of mpd that plays all your music - local files, Spotify, Soundcloud, Rdio, etc. It's awesome.

[1]: http://www.mopidy.com/

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csmuk 234 days ago | link

Agree. I'm doing the same with everything related to "the cloud". The current international political climate doesn't support this model.

Also with music, I point blank refuse to let music turn into a subscription based service. I still buy CDs when something agrees with my ears and listen to them.

I also quite happily transcribe things to sheet music and play it breaking many a royalty and public performance law. Fuck 'em.

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72deluxe 234 days ago | link

Hurray for the CD purchasers! I thought I was the only one left doing this! I too cannot abide a cloud based service for listening to music. I understand the merits of Google's music service but given the fleeting nature of cloud based services, I would rather have a physical copy of something that I can rerip if necessary (and look at the sleeve notes). Having to download music over my limited mobile connection whilst out and about doesn't sound like fun, particularly when the cost of an iPod Classic (with sufficient storage for all of my music, unlike the Touch) is negligible, and the dodgy nature of coverage in hilly areas in the UK. I am chuffed that CD buyers still exist!

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csmuk 233 days ago | link

I live in London and coverage here is pretty bad at times. My phone barely manages GPRS at times.

There are plenty of us CD buyers left :). We're just not as noisy.

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deepGem 234 days ago | link

Isn't this true of data in general. Not just specific to music. It's unfortunate that Amazon dropped some mp3s but that is more of an exception than the norm right ? If we are talking about data integrity, there are several ways in which this can be mitigated. I think it's worthwhile to have all your music stored in a location that is accessible from anywhere and from any player

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metaphorm 234 days ago | link

you're only making the case for improvements to cloud data providers, not making the case that physical media is still worth using.

physical media has enormous problems for anything besides long term archival use.

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LnxPrgr3 234 days ago | link

I glad my music collection was on physical media when tornadoes knocked power out to just about the entire county. I had something to cure the boredom besides drinking and rioting! (Well, once the weather stopped trying to kill us all.)

I'm also glad my music is on physical media every time I don't have to pay insane rates for a couple hours of wifi on a flight just to listen to my music, or when I'm killing time somewhere where cell service is spotty at best.

I don't yet live in the future where access to the cloud is a given, and I prefer my devices don't become completely useless without a data connection.

Edit: My primary physical media isn't a pile of CDs—I have plenty of those too, but stopped carrying them the moment I got an MP3 player. Now I carry almost my entire collection on my phone and a whole lot more than that on my laptop. I see nothing wrong with having copies of things in the cloud (remote backup FTW), but I'm not about to take a shotgun to my local disks.

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sbirchall 234 days ago | link

"physical media has enormous problems for anything besides long term archival use"

for those of us that consider music as art that is precisely the point, especially re: children browsing their parents collections

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lttlrck 234 days ago | link

All my iTunes Match content came/comes from CDs. I still buy physical media from Amazon when it makes sense (most of the time).

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amagumori 234 days ago | link

i agree. however i wouldn't worry about your kids wanting to browse your music choices

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icebraining 234 days ago | link

That's such a tired cliché. Plenty of us share some music tastes with our parents.

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basch 234 days ago | link

Put your data in more than one cloud and keep a local backup.

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tteam 234 days ago | link

You can check out our personal cloud software Tonido (http://www.tonido.com). It organizes all your music, video collection and makes it available from anywhere. We have very good mobile apps for iOS, Android and even for Windows 8. You don't need to take our word. Just check the app ratings and reviews in app stores.

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hyrehas 234 days ago | link

Tonido sucks. Nothing but issues and problems with it and support is non-existent. Stay away!

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revnja 234 days ago | link

I wanted a free TonidoPlug but no one read my mind and sent it to me for free, so they're just awful.

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markshepard 234 days ago | link

you don't even need tonidoplug for it. If you have an old PC or Linux box and you can mount your NAS containing your music, you can just install the free version of Tonido Desktop and stream all of it.

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tteam 234 days ago | link

you just created an account to say this :). Looks like we are getting popular. Please check our forum, our community and make an informed decision.

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jlu 234 days ago | link

@team tonido: just tried the newer v4.* version and it totally rocks, like 10x better than previous one, good jobs !

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mathieuh 234 days ago | link

I think they complement each other rather than directly compete with each other. I have all my files stored locally, but I also have them all uploaded to Google Music so I can listen to them on my phone. Even if Google Music shuts down, I have local copies.

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shinratdr 234 days ago | link

This is the smart strategy. If you're that concerned about the hands you're putting your music in, then all or nothing isn't a good plan.

Instead, diversify and maintain. I use iTunes Match, Google Music and keep everything locally as well as a backup on my server. It all happens automatically when music is added to the local library. Nothing is lost, and redundant access is gained.

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piyush_soni 234 days ago | link

>Music is a great use-case for keeping data in the cloud.

Yes, but ideally, when it's your cloud. Just because all these major cloud players can just stop their service on their whim.

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goldenkey 234 days ago | link

Server. Cloud. If it's your personal music it's not going to matter whether you have a cluster of servers or your single VPS with a service running on it. This cloud buzz is like ajax of 5 years ago. Can we use the terms 'online' and 'hosted' rather than this vague cloud buzzwordry? It's a plague upon tech sites and tech marketing.

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lukifer 234 days ago | link

Thanks for reminding me to set up OwnCloud [1]. :)

[1] http://owncloud.org

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OGC 234 days ago | link

I prefer Seafile, owncloud didn't work properly. As in, failed at syncing files.

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lukifer 234 days ago | link

Noted, I'll try that too. Thank you!

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networked 234 days ago | link

>all these major cloud player can just stop their service on their whim

If you are concerned with minimizing monetary loss rather than preserving working copies of your media [1] you can treat that as an argument for choosing a media provider that allows you to pay a monthly fee. If (when) their service gets discontinued you switch to another one; the only problem you would face is migrating your favorites, bookmark, playlists and the like [2].

[1] Which makes sense when the specific things you want to access (watch, listen to, read, play, etc.) are not rare and can be found elsewhere.

[2] Incidentally, this is something you could offer as SaaS. Edit: See http://resp.in/, http://www.getunify.com/, the FOSS project https://github.com/mauimauer/portify, etc.

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fletchowns 234 days ago | link

If (when) their service gets discontinued you switch to another one; the only problem you would face is migrating your favorites, bookmark, playlists and the like [2].

I don't think this is a good strategy, you are putting yourself at the mercy of content license negotiations that are done by a bunch of idiots with their heads up their asses that you have absolutely no control over. There is no guarantee that the music you "rent" from one service will be available for you to "rent" on another service.

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momerath 234 days ago | link

For those who are shaking their heads at the idea of their collection fitting on dropbox, or listening to single tracks of whatever is on Spotify, I recommend Subsonic. I stream my whole collection from my home connection to my phone.

http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp

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Dirlewanger 234 days ago | link

No thanks to the cloud regarding my music. Even though I use the crap out of Google Music, it sucks at keeping track of diffs between locally and the cloud. I change album art and other metadata all the time. Real pain in the pass. And then there's always the case of where one won't have Internet access, especially when driving.

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goldenkey 234 days ago | link

Can we just say online instead of 'the cloud'? That's what you mean, does it matter if it's only a single server or a virtualized XEN cluster? No.

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hipaulshi 234 days ago | link

I strongly agree with this comment. I still wish there is an easy solution for hosting all my music in different original format without a high cost, but also playable through a cloud player. Music is something that I need it constantly but don't really mind if it is lost in a few years. I used to run Subsonic on beagleboard but it barely keeps up with converting flac to mp3 at stream time. I am looking at http://meetlima.com/ but I don't think that is what I want. iTune integration will become a huge issue unless it pops up as a Shared music.

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altero 234 days ago | link

> Music is a great use-case for keeping data in the cloud

Since when? For start it drains battery much faster. Oh and you know, it does not work offline!

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icebraining 234 days ago | link

Plenty of cloud/online music services allow you to cache music offline to avoid those problems.

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altero 234 days ago | link

So to copy album into phone I have to upload to web, than download it to phone? I could also use USB 1.0 or serial port with similar speed.

Until network will be more reliable and faster than my hdd, there is not much to discus.

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icebraining 234 days ago | link

What's the USB speed when you're three miles from home?

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altero 234 days ago | link

20 MB/s, my phone has USB Host :-)

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cenhyperion 234 days ago | link

I'm somewhere in between. I stream my music from a server that I own and control. Virtually unlimited storage + full control of the data = :)

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caycep 234 days ago | link

Why winamp? my understanding is that it's long been surpassed by other apps, i.e. foobar, even VLC

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codingdave 234 days ago | link

I have used it for all these years because it "just works". I have 2 needs in a music player - play whatever I have locally, and stream me something different when I want to. Winamp did both of those, and I never had an issue with it.

It is hard to "surpass" something that meets my needs perfectly and has given me no issues for over 10 years.

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prg318 234 days ago | link

Because it really whips the llama's ass.

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negativity 234 days ago | link

Ah, Wesley Willis...

Rock over London! Rock on Chicago!

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bhauer 234 days ago | link

Winamp was better than Burger King.

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_pmf_ 234 days ago | link

Why is this not the top comment?

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jay_m 234 days ago | link

The main reason I use Winamp is because it has global keyboard shortcuts for controlling playback. I'm not sure if any other media players have that, if anyone knows of one that does I would love to know.

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Freaky 234 days ago | link

foobar2000, Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Add/select appropriate entry and check "Global hotkey".

I have Ctrl-Pause bound to Play/Pause, Ctrl-PgUp to Previous and Ctrl-PgDn to Next.

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Havoc 233 days ago | link

NB if you have a media keyboard with the play/pause buttons etc then this is no necessary.

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unethical_ban 234 days ago | link

TheSOB88, you are dead, my friend. Another casualty of a poor policy.

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MetaCosm 234 days ago | link

AHK (http://www.autohotkey.com/) -- Global keybindings for any app you want.

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criley2 234 days ago | link

Out of curiosity: I use AHK to do basic testing automation for a windows application that I have literally zero ability to control programatically (to achieve actually good automated testing). Anyone have a better option for this kind of use case?

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npsimons 234 days ago | link

I've used AHK for the same things - it's about the best free/open source thing I've found, besides just adding a scripting language to your program.

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decode 234 days ago | link

AutoIt is a popular choice:

http://www.autoitscript.com/

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jbrooksuk 234 days ago | link

AHK is based on AutoIt v2.

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jay_m 234 days ago | link

Wow I'd forgotten about AHK. Thanks for reminding me!

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jaredsohn 234 days ago | link

I wrote some software (http://www.mute.fm/) that controls playback for you automatically when you watch a video (it will pause/mute it and resume it afterward.) It also lets you set up global hotkeys.

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mih 234 days ago | link

try foobar

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ArcticCelt 234 days ago | link

Foobar is OK but because it tries to give so many power user options it can become a pain to do simple things like play list management.

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JacobSkyler 234 days ago | link

My strategy is to install Columns UI (http://yuo.be/columns.php) and ignore the power options to the best of my ability. So far it's working.

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XorNot 234 days ago | link

I tried this, but it was never quite great. I'm very happy with Clementine which is cross-platform for Windows, Mac and Linux.

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amag 234 days ago | link

In my experience VLC eats a lot more CPU for just playing the same songs. While I like VLC for movie-files, Winamp is nicer when it comes to music.

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xtracto 234 days ago | link

Yeah, I used to use VLC for playing video files, but man it takes a lot of memory and when it decides to "cache fonts" (or something like that) it takes literally hours to start.

Now I prefer smplayer for videos and foobar for music. Although I've been a heavy Rdio user for some time.

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marrs 234 days ago | link

Try running obscure file formats, like chiptune. Winamp reliably supports all of these with a very low barrier to entry.

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clarry 234 days ago | link

Try running less obscure (standard) file formats, like ogg/opus. Now you need to look for a plugin...

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tracker1 234 days ago | link

foobar is a bit... bare bones imho... and neither it or VLC have the shoutcast stream listing services... which will be an issue without winamp. :-(

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vomitcuddle 234 days ago | link

foobar is very lightweight and barebones, but it's also easily extensible

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jlogsdon 234 days ago | link

and heavily extensible. You can basically clone Winamp 2, 3 and 5 with it. The community is really strong, as well.

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g8oz 234 days ago | link

Its the mutt of media players (mutt as in the email client)

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shellehs 234 days ago | link

I think it's just for good-old-day's memory. Just like Super Mario.

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Zoomla 234 days ago | link

VLC can do many neat things but you can you easily rate an MP3 file nowadays?

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themodelplumber 234 days ago | link

VLC can do many neat things, but I never, ever saw it as a replacement for Winamp. It's more like a toolkit, or at least the multi-tool you fall back on to do a variety of things.

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dublinben 233 days ago | link

Who rates MP3 files?

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themstheones 233 days ago | link

I don't have any demographic information to share. But I personally attempt to rate my files. It gives a nice way to categorize by quality. That way I can have abjectly terrible music in my collection, but filter it out for the purposes of not ever wanting to listen to it.

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gohrt 234 days ago | link

foobar still can't do sound level balancing (ReplayGain) properly. Does winamp?

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kderbe 234 days ago | link

What do you mean? FB2K has had excellent ReplayGain support for as long as I can remember.

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mindcrime 234 days ago | link

Because Winamp.

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surement 233 days ago | link

MilkDrop

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etler 234 days ago | link

At least with winamp, there weren't really any major changes since Justin Frankel left, and what made it amazing back then is still in the program now.

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fat0wl 234 days ago | link

Foobar2000 is also pretty stable and awesome -- just need to drop in the Facets component & it's a dream. Winamp is a nice memory from back in the Napster days tho. :)

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brusch 234 days ago | link

Thank you - I always looked down to Foobar2000 (it looked to basic for). But now I've downloaded it and it looks great !

Thank you for the tip. The facet plugin is great - exactly what I wanted.

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etler 234 days ago | link

I've heard some good things about it. I'll give it a try. Winamp is timeless because it's so simple and powerful. I loved the play next queue. If I felt like a few songs I could throw them on the temporary queue without interrupting what was going on. Great for playing music for others too.

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fat0wl 234 days ago | link

foobar has similar features its just confusing at first cuz it puts playlists in tabs. super powerful but takes some getting used to. facets is the necessary add-on because it basically gives you a really powerful search whereas by default there is... none.

the other component i use is the ipod manager i forget what its called but you can find it easily. it lets you add/delete songs pretty easily & if you use flac/wav/whatever it can even convert to mp3 on the fly if you set up the encoder right. that way you can keep lossless on comp but have mp3 on ipod without making an mp3 directory

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davexunit 234 days ago | link

No reason to use a proprietary music player.

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csmuk 234 days ago | link

Every music player is proprietary somewhere be it codec, physical IC, transistor technology, speakers, headphones.

Software is a teeny little bit of the whole thing.

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deathanatos 234 days ago | link

And because some piece of the stack is proprietary means I shouldn't try use non-proprietary software where I can and it makes sense?

Software, while a "teeny little bit", is often the bit I find lacking and needing change.

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recursive 234 days ago | link

One would be to play music.

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scrabble 234 days ago | link

I also recently switched back to Winamp. It just works and it's easy to control.

There's also a plugin called Chipamp which ensures you have all the latest plugins required to play video game music files (nsf, rsn, usf, psf, etc.). This is the best PC tool for listening to video game music.

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niels_olson 234 days ago | link

you should check out subsonic

http://subsonic.org/

I like the isub app for iphone, but there are android apps too: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/apps.jsp

I find subsonic works best with a friend or two participating. A miniature music club if you will.

If you already have a large library, you can use beets to organize it in a separate database (this is our current project) http://beets.radbox.org/

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Nursie 234 days ago | link

Apparently VLC does the shoutcast stuff now if you download a pls file from shoutcast.com and feed it to VLC.

If you're a linux user then 'audacious' is a good/similar replacement to winamp IMHO.

I switched to using quodlibet some time ago. Can't remember why (simplicity, the right views, stuff) but now everything else seems sucky.

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vomitcuddle 234 days ago | link

deadbeef is a very nice lesser-known linux music player that's heavily influenced by foobar2000. quodlibet is probably my second favourite, but it's written in python, so it can be a bit slow/heavy on resources at times. banshee is great for large libraries and as an iTunes replacement.

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prawks 234 days ago | link

I switched to quodlibet for the fast indexing and searching of large libraries. I'm sure other media library managers do that too, but it seems to be very nice in quod.

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Toenex 234 days ago | link

As Linux user forced to use OSX at work I've settled on VOX [http://coppertino.com/vox/] as suitable player for OSX.

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danbee 234 days ago | link

Vox is nice but completely useless to me until it gets gapless playback.

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Toenex 234 days ago | link

Never noticed that. Bit of an omission on their part.

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BlackDeath3 234 days ago | link

No kidding. I used to use it all the time, and I just re-downloaded about a week ago as my player of choice, especially since it's capable of playing FLACs (looking at you, WMP).

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el_duderino 233 days ago | link

AIMP is Winamp's successor.

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PhasmaFelis 234 days ago | link

This is part of why I prefer cloud services like Dropbox that also maintain local copies and simply use the cloud for syncing and backups. Best of both worlds, that way.

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davidgerard 234 days ago | link

VLC?

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dell1994 234 days ago | link

You can install Tonido (http://www.tonido.com) in your desktop and listen to your music from anywhere (iOS, Android, Windows 8). Your data, music and app is all local to system but still can access from anywhere as cloud.

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