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foobar2000 (fb2k) is a freeware audio player available for Windows, iOS, Android, and macOS, developed by Peter Pawłowski. Featuring a modular design, it allows extensive customization through skins, dials, buttons, and visualizers. foobar2000 supports various audio formats, offers metadata organization, and includes a converter interface compatible with command-line encoders. To enhance audio fidelity during resampling or bit depth changes, it employs noise shaping and dithering. The core is closed source, while its SDK is licensed under the Three-Clause BSD license, supporting many official and third-party components for added features.

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History and development

foobar2000 was first released on 20 December 2002 and developed by Peter Pawłowski, who had previously worked at Nullsoft and developed plugins for Winamp. He created foobar2000 with the audiophile community in mind.3 The software's mascot and logo icon consists of a white "alien cat".

foobar2000 supports Windows, though the support of older versions for Windows XP and Vista has been dropped as of version 1.6 (released 2020).45 Windows 2000 support was dropped as of version 0.9.5 (released 2008) and Windows 95/98/ME/NT4 support was dropped as of version 0.9 (released 2006).6

Most functionality also works as intended under Wine on Linux, although the program's crash reporter will detect Wine and direct the user to the Wine Bugzilla.7 The vast majority of plugins and themes work fine, however, certain plugins may cause issues. Safe mode allows users to disable all plugins temporarily to debug the issue.

foobar2000 versions since 0.9.5 feature a revamped default interface, with embedded support for album list, album art,8 spectrum visualization, and some other features and improvements.

In May 2016, versions for mobile devices were released,9101112 and in January 2018, an early beta version for macOS was released.13 In April 2023, version 2.0 was released out of beta with native support for 64-bit, dark mode, and ARM.14

Features

Core

At its core, foobar2000 natively supports a range of audio formats, including MP1, MP2, MP3, MPC, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC / Ogg FLAC, ALAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, Audio CD, Speex, and Opus.

foobar2000 also has a highly customizable user interface, advanced tagging capabilities and support for ripping Audio CDs, as well as transcoding of all supported audio formats using the Converter component. The player can read inside ZIP, GZIP, and RAR archives.

Additional features include ReplayGain support (for both playback and calculation),1516 gapless playback,17 keyboard shortcuts and support for DSP effects such as equalization and crossfade.

Users can configure the foobar2000 Media Library with automated folder watching18 and Windows Media streaming.19 The client is built with an open component architecture, allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.20

Optional

With addons or plugins, foobar2000 can read the APE, HDCD, AC3, DTS, SACD and DVD-Audio formats.

Other optional features include playback statistics, CD burning, kernel streaming, ASIO support, WASAPI output compatibility, and a UPnP/DLNA renderer, media server and controller for networking. Third-party support is also present in the audio client. For instance, foobar2000 supports Last.fm scrobbling and integration with Apple iPod, including album art support and automatic transcoding of audio formats not supported by iPod itself.

Derivative works

foobar2000 developer Peter Pawłowski has also made other audio software, including Boom, which his website describes as an "easy to use audio player intended for casual computer users". It runs on Windows.21

See also

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Foobar2000.

References

  1. The name foobar is derived from a common placeholder name used in computer programming. /wiki/Foobar ↩

  2. "foobar2000 v0.9.6.9 Review". Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 29 June 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120708074724/http://anythingbutipod.com/2009/11/foobar2000-v0969-review/ ↩

  3. "ReallyRareWares – Foobar2000 audio player". www.rarewares.org. Archived from the original on 29 October 2019. Retrieved 3 October 2020. https://www.rarewares.org/rrw/foobar2000.php ↩

  4. "Changelog for foobar2000 version 1.6 (wiki)". hydrogenaud.io. Archived from the original on 6 July 2020. Retrieved 6 July 2020. https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Version_1.6_Release_Notes#Compatibility ↩

  5. "Release notes for version 1.6". foobar2000.org. Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 6 July 2020. https://www.foobar2000.org/changelog ↩

  6. "foobar2000: Change Log (archived)". www.foobar2000.org. Archived from the original on 21 September 2020. Retrieved 3 October 2020. https://www.foobar2000.org/changelog-old ↩

  7. "foobar2000". WineHQ. Archived from the original on 5 March 2018. Retrieved 4 March 2018. https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=1749 ↩

  8. "Foobar2000: Editors' review". CNET. 31 August 2014. Archived from the original on 26 August 2012. Retrieved 29 June 2012. http://download.cnet.com/Foobar2000/3000-2139_4-10235595.html ↩

  9. "Foobar2000 (Mobile Edition)". hydrogenaud.io. Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160605120635/https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,111806.html ↩

  10. "foobar2000 mobile – Windows Apps on Microsoft Store". Microsoft Store. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2019. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/foobar2000-mobile/9nblggh5xs5x ↩

  11. "foobar2000 on the App Store". App Store. Archived from the original on 2 August 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2016. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foobar2000/id1072807669 ↩

  12. "foobar2000 – Android Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Archived from the original on 17 May 2016. Retrieved 10 May 2016. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foobar2000.foobar2000 ↩

  13. "foobar2000 for Mac". www.foobar2000.org. Archived from the original on 10 January 2018. Retrieved 14 January 2018. https://www.foobar2000.org/mac ↩

  14. "Foobar2000:Version 2.0 Release Notes". Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase. Hydrogenaudio. Retrieved 16 January 2023. https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Version_2.0_Release_Notes ↩

  15. "ReplayGain". Hydrogenaudio wiki. Archived from the original on 6 July 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20140706172230/http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain ↩

  16. John Cairns (3 October 2010). "foobar2000: 4.3 Replaygain". Archived from the original on 9 June 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2012. http://joncairns.com/2010/10/foobar2000-4-3-replaygain/ ↩

  17. "Gapless playback". Hydrogenaudio wiki. Archived from the original on 6 July 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20140706172312/http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Gapless_playback ↩

  18. "foobar2000 0.9.6 release notes". Archived from the original on 16 July 2009. Retrieved 9 June 2009. http://www.foobar2000.org/?page=ReleaseNotes&version=096 ↩

  19. "foobar2000 1.0 release notes". Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2010. http://www.foobar2000.org/?page=ReleaseNotes&version=10 ↩

  20. Alex Castle (14 April 2010). "How-To: Manage Your Music the Power User Way with Foobar". Maximum PC. Archived from the original on 24 March 2016. Retrieved 29 May 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20160324050445/http://www.maximumpc.com/how-to-manage-your-music-the-power-user-way-with-foobar/ ↩

  21. "Peter Pawlowski's home page : Software : Boom". www.perkele.cc. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 3 October 2020. https://www.perkele.cc/software/boom ↩