Winamp 2.91 vs Winamp 5.x

[DarkRogue]

Hello,

With a new PC comes the joy of reinstalling every single thing you had on your previous PC..
One of these things is Winamp. Before people start telling me to use something else, I do have alternatives such as foobar, but I have my reasons for Winamp.

Anyway, I've stubbornly stayed with 2.91 because I disliked all the bloat that started after they came up with the failure that was 3.x. They appear to be up to Winamp 5.x now, and from reading about it, it seems they took the "best" of 2 and 3 and put them together. Trouble is I can't find any specifics on this. There's nothing I really need that Winamp 2.x can't do for me right now, just a bit of searching for antiquated plugins sometimes and poor Japanese support, but other than that, it works well. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The Wiki seems to say that Winamp5 is "smaller" than Winamp2 though - does it use less resources or something? I'm basically trying to find some differences between the two (other than the fact that Winamp5 supports Modern skins that I don't use.) and whether or not the really basic Winamp5 installer includes everything Winamp 2.91 had or not.

I'm basically trying to look for a reason to upgrade, if one doesn't seem to exist, I'll stick with Winamp 2.91.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Evander]

I use to use winamp 2.91, now I use 5.x full version. The 5.x lite version will be very likely similar in resources to 2.91, but I decided to go for the full version b/c of the integrated "bento" skin, where the player, visualization, and tracklist are all in one bar instead of seperate windows, and it displays album art as well. With the 5 series full install you get a media library, but I only use that when browsing internet radio, for local files I use a 3rd party media library (dynamic library, b/c it allows "folder view" browsing).
In short, I don't know the advantages of using 5.x lite over 2.91, but if doing the full install there are advantages at the cost of increased resources. By the way japanese support works fine for me on 5.x

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Evander
By the way japanese support works fine for me on 5.x

Japanese support? What are you talking about? Do you mean that you actually seek support for the application? That's a new one on me.

I used Winamp 2.xx for several years and until recently. Now, there are really two reasons I moved to 5.x:

1. The incessant cajoling of 2.xx for me to upgrade (everytime I opened 2.xx, IIRC).

2. People (e.g. here) were telling me that 2.xx has security vulnerabilities. Since I download practically no MP3s I figured I wasn't particularly at risk and I ignored this for the most part.

I tried 2-3 alternate software audio programs, but didn't like them, and besides I too have my reasons for sticking with Winamp. For one, I use a utility that works in tandem with Winamp. I figured that it maybe wouldn't work with 5.x, when I did "upgrade" I found that it does.

I do have a beef with 5.xx, though (I'm running 5.531): It opens much much much slower than 2.xx. Maybe I should look into the light version. I'm only using the classic interface, anyway, so it looks like my 2.xx.

Even with 5.531 I'm having problems with Winamp. Getting the program to launch reliably (or even switch to the new CD) when inserting audio CDs has proved to be a mirage. Lately I have to actually go into the menu system with mouse and navigate to get a new CD to play (i.e. switch CDs)... really very annoying. I have occasionally gone to the Winamp forums for help on the program and gotten expert help pretty quickly. However, my current gripes aren't show stoppers, just annoyances.

 

[Quiksilver]

If you don't like bloat I would try using AlSong, it's what I use. Just turn off all the stuff you don't want (Like the lyrics bar, song alerts, the cabal online ad on first install/run [just click and it will go away], etc). Only real complaint I have about it is its lack of skins.

I myself never liked winamp since I've tried this, winamp used to create a bunch fo havoc on my drivers for some reason and I'd have to reinstall them to fix them.

Edit:

Pic

 

[KlokWyze]

foobar2000 IMO. (sorry)

 

[DarkRogue]

Well, I couldn't decide so I said screw it and dived in to see the differences first-hand.

The first thing is the file sizes have grown tremendously. The 2.91 installer is 2.21mb.. the 5.531 installer weighs in at nearly 13mb, and even the "Lite" version is nearly 7mb (the 2.70mb claim is false.)

That almost put me off immediately, but I decided to try an install and see if I could lighten this clearly bloated software. Turns out it installs a LOT of things, which is fine if you want Winamp to be your all-in-one player, but I only need Winamp to do what it was originally intended to do - play music. I've got Media Player Classic and VLC to handle everything else. The Modern skin support itself is a hefty 3mb. I installed the "basics", all the decoders, none of the encoders, only English language pack, no video stuff, no visualizers, no silly plugins, only thing preserved was the Jump to File thing, and ipod support. This still weighed in at around 13mb.

For kicks, I tried out the "Lite" version, and that install would still take 8.3mb vs the 2.8mb of v2.91.

I loaded up Winamp5 and checked its memory useage.. 12mb right off the bat. That's quite a lot of useage considering Winamp2 barely used 2-3mb at most.
After a bit of configuring, I decided to uninstall the Media Library, because I tried to load it and Winamp crashed (lol.) Unfortunately it took away the iPod support and the Replaygain Scanner (not an issue as I can use Foobar to scan) BUT it also dropped my memory usage from 13mb down to around 984kb. This is what I'm more used to seeing.

As far as "Japanese support" goes, I did not mean requesting support in the Japanese language, I meant that Winamp2 has problems displaying Titles or anything else in any language other than English. For example, ???? - ?????? would appear as gibberish or just squares or question marks. I got around that by finding and installing a "Japanese kit" / jkit for Winamp but a side effect was that it basically converted my entire Winamp into a Japanese version - the menus were also in Japanese.

At first glance it seems they have finally fixed support for other languages in version 5, as my songs are displaying properly in the playlist, titlebar, and even scrolling in the taskbar properly.

Regarding the point about it nagging you to upgrade, that can easily be disabled in the preferences, I never got a nag message to upgrade.

It does seem to be slightly slower than Winamp2, but I suppose everything else works well and the non-english language support + replaygain I suppose is a small price to pay for it. :/

I never had any issues with Winamp muxing up drivers, is that a common issue?

KlokWyze, I already said I had Foobar dangit

 

[mechBgon]

I believe WinAmp exploits are a staple item in exploit suites nowdays, meaning you could be attacked whether you download stuff or not. Unless you use a non-Admin user account and possibly an execution-prevention countermeasure as your normal daily-driver setup, that could be a concern.

 

[DarkRogue]

What kind of exploits are these?

In all my years of using it, I've never had any sort of security problems with it. In fact, the only time I can remember actually having a security breach was when I accidentally hooked up a PC to download a firewall and AV scanner and instantly got MSBlaster. Haven't had any issues since then, as I use common sense when browsing and downloading.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: DarkRogue
What kind of exploits are these?

I'm thinking of IcePack, MPack, that sort. And common sense will not help you when one of your normally-safe favorite websites gets hacked and turned into a malware factory, or you Google for something perfectly safe like "gas barbeque grill" and one of the results you click on turns out to be an exploit site that the bad guys planted there.

A word to the wise is sufficient... :light: And on that note, run the Secunia checkup utility to check your system for exploitable stuff besides just WinAmp.

 

[DarkRogue]

Thanks - I'll be more careful in looking for those, but I think I should be fine, just taking some simple precautions when browsing.

Out of curiosity I downloaded that Secunia utility and most of the insecure apps it found were residing on my old Windows system drive (aka out of date) which I've hooked up to retrieve files over to my new Windows system drive.

 

[mechBgon]

I think I should be fine, just taking some simple precautions when browsing.

And here's the simplest of all: deprive your Internet-facing programs of Admin powers :thumbsup: Firearm minus ammunition...

 

[DarkRogue]

Thank you, mechBgon, I'll take a look into that.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
I believe WinAmp exploits are a staple item in exploit suites nowdays, meaning you could be attacked whether you download stuff or not. Unless you use a non-Admin user account and possibly an execution-prevention countermeasure as your normal daily-driver setup, that could be a concern.

I know you are a big proponent of non-admin user account. I ran the idea in a thread at AVS Forums concerning my HDTV card and application (MyHD MDP 120 and MDP 130, mine being the 120) and the chipper current (and long time) best idea guy said I'd probably be the only guy using non-admin status with his MyHD card were I to go there.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: mechBgon
I believe WinAmp exploits are a staple item in exploit suites nowdays, meaning you could be attacked whether you download stuff or not. Unless you use a non-Admin user account and possibly an execution-prevention countermeasure as your normal daily-driver setup, that could be a concern.

I know you are a big proponent of non-admin user account. I ran the idea in a thread at AVS Forums concerning my HDTV card and application (MyHD MDP 120 and MDP 130, mine being the 120) and the chipper current (and long time) best idea guy said I'd probably be the only guy using non-admin status with his MyHD card were I to go there.

I found this AnandTech poll interesting: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=34&threadid=1510137 As you can see, about 1/4 of the ATOS folks already use non-Admin accounts on Windows routinely, and then there's Vista, which runs apps at non-Admin level by default. So that fellow may have more non-Admin users than he thinks :light:

Anyway yes, I'm a big proponent of them. Guilty as charged :evil: Just converted another system to non-Admin + Software Restriction Policy today, in fact. It showed evidence of a past Smitfraud infection; well, that won't be happening again :evil: