Songbird, the Firefox-like Media Player

Songbird is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source.

Firefox is known for its open-source software that allows programmers to toy with features and help with bug fixes. Now, there is a media player to rival Windows Media Player, Winamp and other like players.

Songbird is at version 0.2 so take that into consideration as you hear about the pros and cons. This software will continue to be improved and changed but right now, it features the ability to play MPEG Audio (mpga), MPEG Layer 3 (mp3), MP4 Audio (mp4a), Ogg Vorbis, Speex, AAC, WMA, FLAC; and lesser known, LPCM, ADPCM, and AMR.

The creators of the program don’t claim to have a “better” product or a bug-free version just yet, but it’s certainly got features you can utilize. While installing the software you are asked if you want to include extensions, for iTunes import, Shoutcast, audioscrobbler (last.fm), or Wikipedia. It offers to scan your system for media files and then continues with the basic installation of the software. You can also set the program up for iPod sync. which many will look for.

There are mini-modes, skins (they have renamed this to “feathers”) and most of the basic options you would expect from a media player. All in all it seems to be a great addition to the media player family. Keep in mind it is open-source and will bear many improvements over time…probably much faster than Microsoft-based software.