Songbird

Songbird is a really good piece of software, and it REALLY could have the potential of being "the Firefox of audio players". Taking features from iTunes, Winamp and implementing new innovative ones, along with the use of add-ons, Songbird could have that "something" we all have wanted since the beginning of the MP3 era. The Mac OS X port could have been more native though. Songbird needs to implement the philosophy of Firefox 3 to achieve something on Mac OS X.

NOTE: Songbird phones home to Google Analytics. IOW: It's tracking user behavior. Be Aware! Reverse firewalls, such as Little Snitch and Intego's NetBarrier can stop such tracking.

If anyone has a copy of Songbird 0.6.1 (PPC) available, please let me know ASAP...it was previously available at http://download.songbirdnest.com/installer/macosx/ppc/Songbird_0.6.1_macosx-ppc.dmg Many thanks!

Rather than convert an extensive library of flacs and shn to alac (for iTunes), I've been trying to use Songbird, with some frustration. I have over 25k items in my library and always growing. Songbird is slow to respond to just about everything in 10.7.5. This may have to do with the media server, which I prefer to disable but can't seem to figure out how. Maybe the idea is that everyone wants to be web integrated instead of just using a feature rich player. Songbird tells me it can't find the shn decoder and for more information, click here. Nice feature, but it takes me to a *video* codec page and ya know, I can't find the shn decoder for SB either. I also had trouble moving the window; disabled various add-ons and messed with prefs and the resize buttons appeared and the window problem was solved. Basically I think the features are very good, lots of integration even though that's not my interest. No cover flow. With tons of customized album art I've spent years collecting and attaching to files, that's a sticking point for me. No ability to see what format the track is; iTunes can list by "kind." But really the speed is the deal breaker. Slow to start, slow to quit. But most frustrating is the one second wait while "chrome and ip address" show up just to switch playlists. Although in prefs one can block sites from accessing your library, I'm just not into my player constantly connecting to the internet for various reasons. I just want to hear my music. Can't beat the price, and for that I really salute you, SB developers. So, I'm headed back to my regular flow of converting flacs and shns to alacs in Toast or Fission. Maybe we can date again in the future, Songbird.

Terrible Icon. This app gets worse and worse....WORSER???? It doesn't like to quit . I had to force quit it 4 times. Ugly icon I used the one that Negritude suggested in last version.

With the icon courtesy of Negritude I really like version 2.0. It seems a little faster and snappier in Mountain Lion 10.8.1

I just upgraded to 2.0.0 and am now unable to move the window. Since half the window is off-screen, the program is now useless.

A massive change and not for the better. Open window/player could not be moved. Cloud site requires login with Facebook, why? Deleted and with no intention of installing again.

Should be called iTunes lite. Didn't like it.