Winamp is Back in Business With the First Major Update in Years

Listening to music on Spotify or Apple Music is cool, but doing it via the good ol’ Winamp is still even better for many people out there. As for now, there’s a new reason to get that ‘ancient’ music player running once again – Winamp has received its first major update in four years.

The update is known as 5.9 RC1 Build 9999, as announced on Winamp’s forums. The first thing that catches our attention is that the famous software has become more compatible with Windows 11, the latest OS from Microsoft. This move was crucial if the developers still wanted to keep Winamp alive.

Among the change log, we can also see other important lines such as improvements for playback of https:// streams, [in_mkv] vp8 support, [out_ds] Display device information correctly in Unicode format, and more. There are also some interesting fixes, such as the ones for memory leaks.

There are no visual overhauls for Winamp that the new 5.9 RC1 Build 9999 update brings, as far as we can tell, which is indeed great news for anybody who loves the iconic looks of the app.

The first version of Winamp was released back in 1997, and the software became popular relatively fast, exceeding 3 million downloads. The app is capable of playing numerous music formats, which is one of the reasons for its huge notoriety.

Almost ten years ago, it seemed like the guys from AOL would put an end to Winamp for good. But gladly, the company known as Radionomy bought the app a year later to continue its legacy.

Surely it’s a lot more comfortable to use music streaming apps nowadays instead of Winamp, but it’s glad to see that an old legend is back in business!

Winamp can be accessed via Windows, Android, MS-DOS (DOSamp), and Mac OS.

Cristian Antonescu
Cristian is in love with technology, as are many of us. He has a vast experience as a content writer in the field. He's involved especially in the hardware area, where he covers the latest news regarding smartphones, laptops, PC components, and so on.