Wow. It’s the end of an era. Well, mostly. I’m sure whatever versions of the thing that will still be floating around the web and sitting on our computers after the official plug is pulled will be useful for a while, but eventually it’ll be time to search for a new media player that I actually like. I’m not looking forward to that day, because a lot of what I’ve seen when I’ve bothered to look is even more clunky than Winamp can be, not to mention less feature rich.
The latest version of Winamp, released on Wednesday, will be the last, with the venerable media-playing software scheduled to all but vanish from the internet next month.
“Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013,” reads a notice posted to the Winamp website on Wednesday. “Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download.”
Bright side: Winamp’s latest version(s) still run on XP, 7, 8, 8.1 (presumedly) and god only knows what else. So as long as Microsoft doesn’t come out with something in the near future what make it break, the lack of development won’t hurt much–not that there’s been much development on it anyway lately.
Also: because I can see me needing it if ever I need a new machine, I yoinked the installer direct off the site for the latest version. If you want, speak up.
That’d probably be handy to have around. I can grab it myself or you can toss it at me, whatever your pleasure.
AAAAAAAAND almost right on queue, enter… Microsoft? … This can’t end well.
Christ. You’ve gotta be kidding.
Dude, if I were, that’d actually make things vaguely easier. The dead version’s still useable. But I seriously cannot make this shit up. Trust me, I tried.
The article seems to give the impression Microsoft wants it possibly for its Shoutcast offering, which means the Winamp player itself could still be dead–and we may be stuck with Windows Media Slayer whether we’re liking the thing or not. but, hey, it’s out there.
I got the same idea, and have the same fear. But if it can make Windows Media a little better, I guess that’s ok.