Winamp 5.53

This software had a history of being lean and mean before it was bought up by AOL. Now it comes with a web browser tacked on, which is handy for exploring your favourite music on the web but pulls it away from its simple roots.

If you like messing about with the look of your software, Winamp is the way to go. There are hundreds of skins you can drop onto the player, celebrating everything from popular movie or game characters to recreations of the front panels of real hi-fi equipment. It’s also designed to accept third-party plug-ins so the player can be configured to do different things.

It isn’t as slick as its rivals and hasn’t changed much in the last few years in terms of the general music-playing ability. But what it lacks in sophistication it makes up for in still being smaller and more compact than its rivals, though with the addition of the browser, it isn’t as small as it used to be.

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