Songbird - the ultimate free music player

Songbird is an open-source free-software media player and web browser. Songbird employs Mozilla’s XULRunner platform, and is thus capable of running on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Solaris and Linux. Songbird utilizes the GStreamer media framework.

Songbird is the lovechild of a boozy Firefox-and-iTunes hookup, from the music jukebox interface to the browsing behavior. Skins are referred to as “feathers” in Songbird, and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Songbird via an extension which generates a default skin.

The developer’s Web site: www.getsongbird.com

Features of SongBird media player:

Media Importing

Add media to Songbird by importing from your file system or iTunes.

Media Playback

Songbird supports MP3, FLAC, and Vorbis on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM on Windows; and AAC and Fairplay on Windows and Mac.

GStreamer

Songbird now uses GStreamer as our main media playback system, across all platforms.

Smart Playlists

Create dynamic playlists that automatically update based on criteria you set.

Web Browser

Songbird includes an integrated web browser with features like bookmarking, tabbed browsing, and more.

Library Management

Browse, organize, sort and search your media.

Cross Platform

Songbird runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Device Support

Songbird’s device support is limited. The Device Support wiki has additional details about what’s supported. Apple iPhones, iPod Touch and Microsoft Zune devices are not yet supported.

Album Artwork

Display the currently playing track’s album art and write new artwork back to the file. We still need to support album art fetching.

Subscriptions

Subscribe to music blogs and download music directly to your library. We’re working on ways to improve this feature.

Songbird is the lovechild of a boozy Firefox-and-iTunes hookup, from the music jukebox interface to the browsing behavior. What’s not to love about that mashup? However close it hops to the edge of its nest, though, the app is still in beta and buggier than an Alaskan summer. When considering that not-significant drawback against the music-management, music-discovery, and Web-browsing features that take wing along with broad MP3 player support, it’s hard to deny that Songbird injects some long-missing fun into the online experience.

The left sidebar provides quick links to bookmarks, downloads, your music library in an iTunes-style interface, and several music discovery Web sites to get you started. When you’re looking at any Web site with MP3s available for download, Songbird will open a new window at the bottom main browsing pane. Double-click on a song to play it, while links on the right let you purchase the track from Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, and Amie St. They also tell you the format of the track–MP3 or AAC, for example–and provide a blog link for more info.

Skins are referred to as “feathers” in Songbird, and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Songbird via an extension which generates a default skin. Using CSS (and optionally XUL), and an image manipulation program such as Photoshop or GIMP, users are then able to make Songbird look however they want.