There’s a plethora of music players to choose from, among which iTunes and Winamp usually have the upper hand. However, if you are curious enough, you might find that lesser known alternatives like MediaMonkey offer a reasonable amount of features and tools to organize and equally enjoy your music library.

MediaMonkey automatically scans your PC for all types of music formats. If you have playlists from other programs, it’s good to know that the application also adds m3u files, sparing you the pain of having to recreate them. The file explorer view on the left lets you easily navigate your music collection by categories like artist, genre or rating. You can convert tracks into any format you wish, depending on what size or quality of sound you’re looking for. MediaMonkey also lets you analyze and adjust the volume of tracks to increase your listening experience.

MediaMonkey has made its reputation on its advanced tagging management feature. Every time a track is added, the program will verify its tags. You can automatically fill in missing details with info from Amazon or Filename. The program can clean up your tags, move information into the correct categories and synchronize tags for selected tracks. You can also rename and move multiple files thanks to the auto-organize function. MediaMonkey also supports Winamp plugins and visualizations plus skins can be applied to spice up the interface.

If you want to make your own mix CDs, you’ll be happy to know that MediaMonkey rips and burns CDs and DVDs. Create a virtual CD of your favorite tracks and let MediaMonkey do its job. Budding DJs will enjoy the auto-DJ mode, which mixes tracks for you and the Party Mode, which blocks your configuration but lets anybody play their favorite tune. MediaMonkey’s versatility doesn’t stop there. The music manager also lets you synchronize with your portable music devices like your iPod or iRiver.

If you feel like completing your library with a couple of fresh albums you can browse sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble or AllPosters and purchase tracks. However, unlike Songbird, where you can type in a URL, browse and save your favorite music blogs and sites, MediaMonkey only allows you to browse their selection of online stores.

We were disappointed with the web radio selection, which only features Shoutcast and Icecast, and were surprised to see no sign of podcasts anywhere in the application. However version 3.0 is planning on incorporating this to the application.

Despite these drawbacks, we recommend MediaMonkey to anybody looking for a solid alternative to iTunes or Winamp. This original music manager is more than capable of organizing a very large music library and offers advanced tagging management rarely seen in other music applications. While the browser and web radio are fairly limited, MediaMonkey allows you to rip your custom CDs and connects to most portable music devices. If you really take a liking to MediaMonkey, cough up a few bucks and upgrade to the Gold version, which will open up all of the program’s functionalities like finding missing tracks or creating auto (smart) playlists.

Download MediaMonkey 3.0.5.1187 in Softonic

There was a time when video files all conformed to some basic requirements and could be played without protest using any media software. As technologies change and licensing becomes more restrictive and specific, simply playing a video file has now become a challenge and thanks to the plethora of obscure proprietary formats now available, finding a media player that works for the majority has become more hassle than it’s worth. Thankfully the open source community have come up with a solution in the form of VLC, otherwise know as VideoLAN Client.

This cross platform player doesn't strike as particularly good-looking when put side by side with Windows Media Player or Winamp, but you'll appreciate its far superior usability within moments. Its power can be demonstrated with any video files you happen to be downloading, which can be played in whatever form they exist, be it an actual video format or an unclassified temporary one. As you preview a video, it will skip the parts that have yet to be downloaded and let you see the rest – Media Player in comparison, can't preview files in this way.

Apart from playing incomplete videos, because lets face it not many people want to do that anyway, VLC has support for a huge range of video formats. If it doesn't recognize the file type it will try playing it anyway often successfully or if it's an encrypted file it will display the scrambled video in its raw form. The interface is stripped down to the bare bones, with the apparent objective of making it as unobtrusive as possible. With superb hotkey support, you can do practically everything you want without touching your mouse.

Put simply, VLC is a video player that doesn't stray in to other areas. There is only one alternative skin available, but all it will take is one look and you'll quickly be switching back to the default.

This free player should appeal to true cinephiles who want as little distraction as possible from their viewing experience. Being open source it's free to use and thanks to a small file size and a friendly installation process, we would recommend it to absolutely everyone as their "backup" or "catch-all" video player.

Download VLC Media Player 0.9.4 in Softonic

Choosing a multimedia player used to be a real no-brainer. However, during recent times the raft of new features and updates added to classic media players like Winamp, Windows Media Player, and even iTunes have left the apps increasingly bloated. Far from being the slick, well-oiled machines they once were, these programs have been stuffed with so much that they are in danger of ending up like a sluggish, overweight athlete still holding on to past glories.

For those looking for a fresh alternative to these ballooning apps, The KM Player could be your ticket. The application has a small desktop footprint and its minimalist interface, somewhat akin to the original Winamp 5, means that access and playback are quick and hassle-free. Like Winamp, the interface is fully skinable, and there are some nice aesthetic touches, such as the changing of colour on the player with every new track. There are all sorts of options to help you pimp your player, such as visualizations, plug-ins and playback options, but the beauty of KM Player is that these are turned on at your request rather than being forced upon you at the outset.

The application handles both audio and video, and supports a wide range of different formats, meaning that once installed, you should never need to touch another player. Video playback is particularly impressive thanks to the range of processing tools available that allow you to sharpen, change picture properties, apply filters and even make video captures from within the program.

Download KMPlayer 2.9.3.1432 R2 Beta in Softonic

Let's admit it: Windows Vista does have some graphical eyecandy that many of us would like to enjoy too, that is, if we could have it without having to give up on our beloved XP.

Well, who say we can't? Here's the trick: download TrueTransparency, copy it to any folder on your hard drive (no installation required) and you'll be able to add a sleek transparency effect to your windows. It's as easy as that! Just bear in mind that it may not work with all your apps (during my tests, for instance, Winamp didn't get the Vista look) but most system windows and standard applications will show off a shiny transparent look.

Like I said, the program doesn't require installation and hardly uses any system resources. From the little icon displayed on the system tray you can change between two different skins, set the program to be run on Windows startup and also close it when you grow tired of so much transparency and want to go back to traditional Windows XP windows.

TrueTransparency is a very quick, simple way to have the Vista transparency effect on your XP windows.

Download TrueTransparency 0.9.4 in Softonic

Winamp was born as a very basic media player and has slowly but consistently improving for many years. Its main purpose was to be completely customizable and through the years, many people have contributed to a library that now consists of 20,000 skins and 461 plug-ins.

When version 5 was released, Nullsoft redeemed themselves in the public's eyes after producing a much improved player to replace Winamp 3. They didn't need much encouragement as they justified skipping version number 4 by saying that it was such a huge improvement that it deserved to be called 5!

Luckily they are justified in their opinion, as Winamp offers everything you might want in a media player. Using the skins, you can set it to look like the original or the current default which looks great and puts you in control of all your media quickly and easily. I particularly like the minimized player that consists of a small bar that you can place on the edge of your screen. Of course, if neither of these agree with your taste you can download and try any of the thousands others available on the Winamp website.

The player supports a wide range of file formats, and because the program is small and simple, it works quickly on almost all computers. Have a look through the available plug-ins and you will also find that you can hook up your iPod and manage its music library.

Download Winamp 5.541 Full in Softonic

Winamp Lite is a small version of Winamp, it weighs less than one megabyte, that will essentially let you play audio files and use classic skins and plug-ins. Great to fit onto your desktop and if you don't to use up to much hard drive space. However, if you want to enjoy the complete benefits of Winamp, you should install the Full version instead.

Download Winamp 5.541 Lite in Softonic

According to some happy users, Spider Player is so good that it could even rival Winamp in the popularity stakes for basic players one day. It's certainly a very good looking player and not only that, it makes life easy where listening to music is concerned.

The look is obviously a key part for the developers and they've even included a "tuning" bar in the skin which allows you to change the tone of it according to the mood you are in. As with Winamp, I like the fact that you can also divide-up the player as you like. For example, when you open it, the main playback window, equaliser and playlist are all joined together. But you can split these up as you like and place them in various parts of your desktop for easy access. To control playback, you can simply drag and drop the status bar and it responds very quickly. There's also a pitchshifter, echo and reverb bar to play with.

One nice added little extra us that Spider Player also has a built-in ID3 tag editor and CD ripper that can burn in MP3, WAV, OGG and WMA formats. Once minimised, the player also sits neatly in your system tray so it's well integrated into your OS. This is one of the best Mp3 players I've tried outside of Winamp although it lacks the plugins of the former.

Download Spider Player 2.3.5 in Softonic

CoolPlayer is a simple MP3 and OGG player with a similar interface as WinAmp, however CoolPlayer does use up much less CPU ressources. The download includes skins support, an advanced playlist editor, an ID3 tag multi-editor, a quick MP3 to WAV decoder and an 8 band equalizer.

Download CoolPlayer 219 in Softonic

If you're tired of Windows standard gray clock, use Chameleon Clock and spice it up!

This easy app enables you to customize Windows clock by applying a dozen different skins, besides improving its basic functions and adding some new ones. I personally found some skins to be a bit excessive, especially in terms of the space they take in the taskbar. This means that if you want to keep the clock within reasonable limits, you probably have to tell Chameleon Clock not to display date.

As for the extra functionality, it turns Windows standard clock into a really useful tool: not only does it tell you the date and time, but can also handle your pending tasks and quick notes in a full featured calendar you can see just by hovering your mouse over the clock.

What's more, you can schedule quick reminders and alarms, use it as a stopwatch and also make sure your PC is on time thanks to its direct connection to several atomic time servers on the Web.

Chameleon Clock brings Windows clock to life with new handy functions and a handful of skins, although some of them are a bit tacky and take way too much space.

Download Chameleon Clock 5.1 in Softonic

Sick of your audio ripper leaving behind lots of junk files? Audiolib CD Ripper is an easy to use tool which can rip audio CD tracks to Mp3, WAV or OGG format without creating any temporary files. It also retrieves album and single information as CDDB is supported via the free DB server. The program supports ID3 tags, track titles can be renamed and a Winamp playlist can be generated.

One nice feature is that the ripper can convert CD's to the lossless APE compression format. This gives you super compressed files but with no loss in sound quality. It's also a very good looking burner - there are tons of great skins to choose from. One other thing worth adding is that it can support multiple CD-ROM devices so if you'd like to connect external ones, you'll have no problem with this program.

There's not a great deal to fault with Audiolip CD Ripper except that sometimes, the buffer does not load as quickly as it should although this may depend on your CD-ROM device.

Download Audiolib CD Ripper 1.1 in Softonic

Winamp's playlist is a convenient way to browse your music collection and select what you feel like listening to in a given moment. But when you have several thousand files it's not that easy anymore. This is why you need Album List, a Winamp plugin specially designed to browse albums, not files.

This plugin attaches a new window to Winamp and displays your album list on it. You can add as many directories as you want, but take into account that the more elements on the list, the longer it will take Album list to create the list and display it properly. In fact, during our tests, sometimes it didn't even display it at all.

You can see a regular file list or choose the cover list, which definitely looks nicer and makes it easier to browse your collection, although it takes a bit more resources. We especially liked the possibility to export this list as an HTML file.

Download Album List 2.06 in Softonic

Let’s begin with a very simple question: why should we surrender to the most downloaded software when there are good but not so popular alternatives? Robert Frost said: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by” which, applied to software, may be translated as “take a risk and use new apps... even if they’re not that famous”. So, if you’re looking for a free, fast, simple MP3 player, and don’t feel like bowing down to Winamp the Almighty, just give XMplay a chance.

The first thing I liked about XMplay is the fact that you don’t need to install it on your system. Just unzip it to whatever folder you like (for example Program Files/XMplay), and you may start enjoying your music right away. The range of file formats supported by XMplay is reasonably wide, including Internet streaming, CD tracks and playlists. Surprisingly, it does not work with video, a feature that other “alternative” players such as KMPlayer do include.

Bearing in mind the large amount of MP3 players available, comparisons are hard to avoid. XMplay does its job and it does it well, without using too many system resources. The interface offers two possible sizes and can be customized with nice skins, a popular feature with users. But what I really loved is the fact that you can control almost every function in the program by means of shortcuts, which turns out to be very handy if like me, you listen to music whilst working with the computer. No need to maximize the program’s window, look for the appropriate Pause button and click on it every time somebody talks to me: one simple shortcut gets the job done.

But hey, it’s an MP3 player we’re talking about here so, what about the sound quality? In fact, this may be XMplay’s major weakness, as those with a good ear will notice it doesn’t sound as good as other players I have tested so far, particularly Winamp or ALSong. It’s just one weak point, but quite an important one when talking about a program that is intended to play music. Besides, and while this may be precisely its main function, XMplay lacks some extra tasty options that we find in other players, such as the built-in audio converter featured in Spider Player, the Lyrics Viewer included in ALSong or the impressive skins offered by Xion Audio Player.

Summing up, although XMplay will not be able to compete against the “big ones” in the MP3 player market, it’s still a very nice, free application, as long as you don’t ask for high-fidelity sound quality.

Download XMPlay 3.4.2 in Softonic

Toaster is designed especially for the visual pleasure of Winamp users, displaying a highly customizable notification on the desktop every time a new song starts in the audio player. It's not just a decorative message: in fact, you can choose exactly which data should be displayed among a wide range of options such as artist name, track title, length and, of course, the album cover if available.

These are not the only customization options included in Toaster. You can choose between several configuration presets, although not all of them are as visually pleasant as the original one and sometimes they don't load correctly. Anyway, you can also customize it manually by choosing fonts, colors, skins, animation effects and many more details.

Download Toaster for Winamp 0.7.8 in Softonic

So you prefer AIMP but you miss the look of Winamp? Then look no further than this plugin that gives you the best of both worlds.

There are 8 different colours to choose from (labelled in Russian) but it's just a case of trial and error to find the one you like best.

Download AIMP Winamp Rimidalw Skin 1.6 in Softonic

True Launch Bar aims at making your favourite programs and common tasks accessible from your desktop in a click. This launcher application woos users thanks to a high level of customization and in-depth configuration.

When you install True Launch Bar, you’ll be able to insert a number of plug-ins to quickly access popular programs like Winamp, Media Monkey and for specific tasks like playing a CD, checking your battery or adding a printer. Another nice touch is the ability to set up hotkeys to access your favourite programs in a snap. You can also decide to protect your launch bar with a password if it contains access to sensitive information. While you can get lost in the thorough configuration process, once you’ve got everything in place you should find True Launch Bar to be a convenient tool.

True Launch Bar can be configured to your will and may be placed anywhere on the screen. It can hover on your desktop, hide away or sit in any corner of the desktop. The default style is not particularly attractive but luckily you can change the background colour, adjust transparency, insert original icons or switch to one of the different skins available.

The only drawback to True Launch Bar is that it doesn’t include a quick search tool, which is often found in similar programs and incredibly handy when looking for files. However True Launch Bar makes up for this thanks to its usability and total customization. If you regularly work with loads of applications then True Launch Bar is a good way to access them quickly and to simplify your work process.

Download True Launch Bar 4.2 in Softonic

If you've ever thought there must be a better way to organise Windows, then you might find Desktop Sidebar the answer you’ve been waiting for. Desktop Sidebar is a simple but powerful toolbar that integrates with Windows main features, Outlook and offers a whole lot more. If you’ve not been impressed by Yahoo! Widget Engine or Google Toolbar, then it’s definitely worth a try.

One of Desktop Sidebar’s strongest features is its integration with Outlook. It provides instant shortcuts to email overviews, previews, notes and calendar entries. It also provides customisable news headline feeds, access to search engines and even Windows Media Player/Winamp controls. It’s particularly useful if you’ve got several email accounts, as you can set it up to check multiple IMAP and POP accounts including Hotmail. You may find yourself saving a lot of time with this feature alone although unfortunately, it does not seem to support integration with Thunderbird as yet.

Other pre-installed components include the stats bar which shows how much RAM and CPU throughput your PC is experiencing at any one time. This can however get increasingly annoying as the status bars shoot up and down but it can easily be deactivated in the ‘Settings’ tab. Desktop Toolbar need not be intrusive either - it can be displayed permanently on your desktop or set to auto-hide itself when not in use.

To install more components, you can visit the developer website where you’ll find one for just about everything. However, we found that it crashed on more than one occasion when trying to add some of these new components. Amongst the most popular and useful components are the ‘IP address’ plugin which displays a whole realm of connection statistics and ‘Virtual Desktop Panel’ which allows you to switch between 4 desktop backgrounds at any one time. For those who want to keep track of the latest headlines, the news component is a useful add-on although by default, it's aimed at a US audience. However, you can add RSS feeds from whichever news sources are more local to you.

On the downside, we found that Desktop Sidebar does tend to consume around 20% of your CPU resources which is quite a lot for such a small app. However, if you use it to check your mail accounts and news reports, you save memory by reducing the number of browser tabs you need open. There are lots of great skins, although it seems the components have peaked at around 70 with not many new recent additions.

In summary, Desktop Sidebar doesn’t offer that much more than the Google Toolbar in terms of ease-of-use and features. However, it certainly offers more email checking options than most similar utilities and has a pretty big choice of components to choose from. If you’re a real toolbar/widget junkie and especially if you use Outlook a lot, then you’ll probably find this app increases your productivity.

Download Desktop Sidebar 1.05.116 Beta in Softonic

This is a plug-in pack for Winamp which has been compiled by Winamp staff and contributors, namely Ben Allison, Will Fisher and Darren Owen, with help from DJ Egg & Koopa. This pack features some handy extra functionalities for your favorite player. Once you test them you won't be able to live without them!

These are the plug-ins included in this pack:

• Ogg Vorbis Encoder
• Apple Lossless (alac) Decoder
• Lite-n Winamp Preferences
• ML Lite-n
• Skins in Submenu
• Playlist Undo
• Find file on disk
• Predixis Removal tool

Download Winamp Essentials Pack 5.34 in Softonic

WWWinamp is a web server which allows you to control a copy of WinAMP on the host computer through a web browser. This solution is perfect for people who prefer to use WinAMP on their Home Theater PC's or for people who wish to have remote control of their instance of WinAMP from anywhere.

One goal of WWWinamp v4.0 is to change it's role into a web server that merely interacts with WinAMP.

The other goal of WWWinamp is giving users the ability to change the layout and the UI of the Web Interface to anything they please, which was the primary limitation of the previous versions. With the new scripting engine, users to modify the default skin which comes with WWWinamp or create their own!

Download WWWinamp 4.0a12 in Softonic

This gorgeous skin allows you to transform your version of Winamp Modern into a thing of beauty. The futuristic skin allows you to select one of 11 different color schemes, and three different modes of operation. If you want to smarten up your Winamp interface then you could do a lot worse that downloading this app.

Download Invicta for Winamp 5 1.3 in Softonic

PionNer 3 Skin is one of the most popular skins for Winamp Modern, giving your media player the look of a plush car stereo. It comes with no less than 12 different colour combinations and several cool animations, which you can define and customize in whatever way you decide.

Download PionNer3 Skin 5.24 in Softonic