Unreleased alphas and betas of winamp 5 have been floating around the web for a while, but winamp 5 has now been officially released.

For those of you who don't know, winamp 5 combines the features of winamp 3 with the stability of winamp 2. There is no winamp 4, the 5 comes from the fact that it's a blend of 2 and 3 (2+3=5). Winamp 5 uses winamp 2 plugins, and can use classic winamp 2 skins or more freeform winamp 3 skins. Winamp 3 had 2 main problems, bloat and lack of stability. Winamp 5 cures the stability problem, but does nothing for the bloat.


They've rearranged their site with the new release, and I for one don't like it. It is now a pain in the ass to find winamp 2 skins. I prefer winamp 2 skins for 3 reasons: 1) I use (and plan to continue using, since I'm not happy with winamp5) winamp 2.9x, which does not support winamp 3 skins. 2) I use spinamp and shoutamp, which automatically skin themselves to match your winamp 2 skin, but don't match themselves to winamp 3 skins. and 3) If I were to use winamp 5, I would still use winamp 2 skins because the bloat problems (slow load times, resource usage, etc) are less severe when using winamp 2 skins than they are with winamp 3 skins.

I see no reason to switch from my Winamp 2.something. It plays mp3s and CDs, which is all I use it for. Sill, I've heard that Winamp 5 is not as much a PoS as Winamp 3 was.

The thing that pisses me off is that I can't seem to find a download link for Winamp 2.91 anymore (not that I looked very hard since I still have it installed). Winamp 2 is still my preferred media player, and I'm pretty hooked on a few of its plugins. I liked the way it was before, when Winamp 2 still had its own site. I'm probably not going to try Winamp 5, because it adds nothing I want to Winamp 2's features.

I just downloaded Winamp 2.91 at http://classic.winamp.com/download/

What do you mean by 'just'? For me that URL shows a page saying "Winamp 5.0 Player Download".

On 12-12-03 I downloaded winamp 2.91 there but your right it's winamp 5 now. You can download winamp 2.91 at www.oldversions.com

You can download v2.91, v3, or v5 at 1001winampskins.com. Here's the v2.91 download page http://www.1001winampskins.com/download_winamp.html

Also, if you use v5 with v2.x skins, it's almost the exact same as v2.91 (because v5 is built on the 2.x core).


I also have a bookmark somewhere of a site where you can download almost any version of winamp (including the leaked 2.95 (which is what I'm currently using)). Here- http://winampheaven.net/

Edited by Cypherswipe at 00:39 on December, 18th 2003

If you just do a google search for Winamp 2.91, you can find it pretty quickly.

I can't say I found any use of winamp yet. I keep using media player classic all the time. It has unique features for playing video files and a playlist in addition to media player 6 look&use.

http://gabest.org/