Winamp is AOLs whore?

By | 2006/07/14
5 Comments

So I’m back using XP at the office after a long home-based hiatus from all things windows. I am trying to setup this machine with comparable FOSS apps and I’m having a hard time. I’ve grown accustomed to my Linux based apps so these windows apps aren’t cutting it.

I installed Winamp today, as I remember using that long ago in my Windows days. What do I see when I’m installing it? “Nullsoft is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL/Time Warner.” Whoa, back the truck up!

So I quickly cancel the installation of that. If there could possibly be a company worse than Microsoft, it’d be AOL. Microsoft buy & whores out companies that created good apps but AOL simply doesn’t have any useful or competitive product. Overpriced, bloated ISP.. no thanks.

So, for those of you who didn’t know, Winamp is pnwd by AOL. Don’t use it. If I find a useful non-bloated, non-whore of an XP based app I’ll let you know. In the meantime I’m going to start bringing in my Linux laptop from home.

5 thoughts on “Winamp is AOLs whore?”

  2. Gary

    I vaguely remember that AOL acquired Nullsoft, but I don’t remember whether it was a direct purchase, or whether Netscape bought Nullsoft and then AOL got it as part of the Netscape buyout. Either way, it happened around that time.

  3. Lamont Peterson

    I was going to suggest trying out Sonique, and looking for a link for you I discovered that it was dropped. Read about it on Wikipedia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonique_(media_player) ]. I don’t know what they author(s) of that Wikipedia page are thinking; it was always stable for me (as long as I wasn’t running one of their alpha releases) extremely performant and consumed 1/5 of the processor of any other player, plus it was just cool. Too bad it’s “dead”, but if you want to try out their last stable release before rolling it up, you can find it out on the web. I still have it on Windows XP at home.

  4. Anon

    AOL bought NullSoft in full back in 2000. LONG time ago. And I disagree. Nothing is worse than Microsoft, not even AOL. I still proudly use WinAMP.

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