If you listened to music on a computer in the early-Noughties, chances are Winamp had pride of place on your desktop. Now, the much-loved MP3 player has been given a major update for PC, as well as looking forward to entering the streaming age with a new app for Android and iOS mobile devices in 2019. Here’s the best way to download Winamp 5.8 today.
As was widely reported, a beta version of Winamp 5.8 recently leaked online. In response, Winamp-owner Radionomy has now made an official version of the update available to download.
The company recommends you only download Winamp from its website, so you can be sure it’s “safe for you to use” and we absolutely agree – this is the only way you should now be looking to download the new Winamp.
- Download Winamp here
Read on for more details on the original leak and the future of Winamp.
Winamp for Android and iOS: App update coming soon
News of a Winamp iOS and Android app originated with a report in TechCrunch, which cited the CEO of Winamp-owner Radionomy, Alexandre Saboundjian, as revealing the big plans to revitalise the music player.
Speaking to the outlet, Saboundjian hinted that the new Winamp app will serve as a kind of aggregator and offer you access to all your music, podcasts, and streaming content from a single location.
“What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast — this, to me, is not the final experience…People want one single experience… [and] I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device,” Radionomy CEO Alexandre Saboundjian tells the site.
What isn’t yet clear is which services will be available in the new Winamp app, which will be available for Android and iOS devices, or when it’ll come out – though the article moots a broad 2019 release date.
In the meantime, Radionomy said it would be releasing an updated version of the classic Winamp player for desktop, to bring it up-to-date with more recent OS releases like Microsoft’s Windows 10. It was last refreshed in 2013, when Winamp was owned by AOL.
Such is the popularity of the old school music player that the Winamp 5.8 beta was subsequently leaked for download online.
This unofficial Winamp build actually dated back to October 2016 and was shared anonymously on a file sharing site, so it wasn’t released by Radionomy – though as we’ve said, that’s all changed now.
Windows fan blog Neowin first reported on the existence of the leaked software.
Potential ‘improvements’ in Winamp 5.8 included Windows 10 optimisations and a host of other fixes, but as we noted at the time, what was touted wasn’t an official or stable release, so at best, your retro Winamp dreams could have ended up as an unfulfilled fantasy; and at worst, you might have bricked your entire computer.
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Stay tuned, as the official Radionomy release of the 2018 Winamp update (H/T Techdows) looks like it could be just the beginning of an exciting future for what’s surely the best music player ever built.
Excited for the Winamp reboot and new app? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.