The new release candidate for Winamp version 5.9.1 improves on version 5.9 released in August and fixes some bugs. It even adds some new features to the player.
Most of these are simple updates or improvements to existing features, but since it's 2022, one of the new characteristics is the support for NFT music.
"The latest edition of applications Winamp allows music lovers to connect the Metamask wallet via Brave, Chrome or Firefox to Winamp. They can then connect their favorite music NFTs to the proven player," the company says in a statement Press release released by the Ars.
"Winamp supports audio and video files distributed according to the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards and is launching this new feature for the Ethereum and Polygon/Matic protocols."
An updated rendering engine for Winamp's in-app browser, which is currently based on Internet Explorer 10, would be needed to directly render the websites required to download these NFT playlists, according to the release notes.
There's still a lot to like for old Winamp fans, and it's nice to see that the 5.9 update was upgraded very quickly to the next version. Among the many other fixes, the new edition it includes a "memory footprint reduction", an increase in bandwidth for streaming music, an update to OpenSSL 3.0.5, and a few other updates to the codecs and other software that Winamp uses to do its job.
Regarding NFT support, Winamp developer Eddy Richman (he goes by the moniker “DJ Egg” on the Winamp forums) wrote that those who don't want it can remove it, either during the installation process or after installing the app.
