Why is winamp phoning home?

[Nazo]

I'm kind of curious why zone alarm is telling me that winamp is attempting to make a connection to various different addresses (for example, this most recent time I got the IP 207.200.97.161 which corresponds to the DNS waweb-ntc0l-0.winamp.com, but, it keeps changing to a different one.) I don't like the idea of it suddenly starting to collect information and send it, but, it's kind of suspicious considering that it's suddenly phoning home every single time I close it. Thing is, I have the options to report statistics and automatic update checking turned off, so it shouldn't be doing this. Whatever it is, it seems to be new to one of the later versions because up until just recently I was using 5.05 or something along that general area.

Has the Winamp team suddenly implemented a new policy of becoming like so many of the others out there that do things like spy on the consumer (which ultimately results in the product becoming pure spyware and finally with it being removed from the computer)? I seem to recall that a while back AOL or someone evil like that aquired them, but, that they made it abundantly clear they had no intentions of changing because of it, but, then again, I've heard such statements before for other products that eventually changed anyway, and not for the better, so I wouldn't be that terribly surprised if this is indeed the case. Does anyone know just what specifically it's trying to do and what information it passes?

 

[Shadow2531]

I've noticed this too, so I looked in the preferences for something that'd cause it.

It might be the "Look for new online media channels on exit" checkbox in the media library's settings. (see modify preferences button on the media library tab in the preferences)

 

[Nazo]

Nope. I don't use the media library. Or, more accurately, I need it so little, that I always uninstall the plugin it uses so that it's not even an option. On that subject, I also removed whatever that musicmagic or whatever the heck it was called and the shoutcast library thing too. I know my servers, and I know where my media is, so I didn't need them. The media library page of the plugins is completely empty.

 

[tdg]

Theres also a option when you install it to send anonymous usage statistics back to Winamp, did you uncheck that option?

 

[nowshining]

I haven't had this yet, check for spyware, adaware, do u have such programs? do on line scan(s)...

Only thing I have had with the AOL/Winamp combine version when exiting it shows an error in black background in read writing and red border it says I must left click on it to close..other than that no problems..

or u could try going into the prefs and seleting phone home items, maybe a coding error, I had this with Atmosphere lite to not show a starting dialog about it, if the check mark was beside the don't show this dialog again it would show again, but if unchecked it would not show again...


EDIT:the error happens everytime i use winamp when listening to AOL radio and it shows exactly in the middle on top of the monitor screen in the middle of the title bar of the application...first I thought it was a virus with the way it looked...:O

 

[Steel Chicken]

lots of modern software phones home. who knows why?
if I can, I block them. If its something that needs access to the internet (such as winamp for web-stations) I block the IP address range its trying to talk too.

screw that spying on us crap.

 

[Cheetoz]

does anyone have down the range ip and ports that winamp uses to check for updates and collect album info?

 

[Nazo]

Theres also a option when you install it to send anonymous usage statistics back to Winamp, did you uncheck that option?

Yes. That's what I meant by "the option to report statistics."

I haven't had this yet, check for spyware, adaware, do u have such programs? do on line scan(s)...

Way ahead of you. I run regular scans since I'm a heavy gamer and can't afford to have little things randomly stealing cycles. It's pretty rare I find anything other than a "suspicious registry entry" which usually just refers to a program keeping up with last open document or some other thing like that.

or u could try going into the prefs and seleting phone home items, maybe a coding error, I had this with Atmosphere lite to not show a starting dialog about it, if the check mark was beside the don't show this dialog again it would show again, but if unchecked it would not show again...

No unintentional error of this nature. The UI hasn't changed much in years, and if there's an option that is mysteriously not fitting, I'm going to have to go ahead and say it's intentional -- albiet probably not OFFICIALLY so. I kind of wonder if the particular incident you mentioned was truly accidental as well, but, that's another matter. Anyway, there are no obvious signs like a random black dot somewhere or anything like that to imply something could be misplaced like that, so if anything is misplaced it was misplaced so badly it's entirely off the actual dialog.

There is, I suppose, the theoretical possibility of an error more along the lines of one of those options being completely ignored. Still, considering how long those particular options have been in winamp all but completely unchanged, I really suspect any such "accidental" error would be unofficially intentional if actually present. You have to bear in mind that most of the basic layout and handling of winamp hasn't changed much in years since the 2.xx days. They did make radical changes for winamp 3, but, everyone hated those and those changes were thrown out. (Winamp 3 was a seperate fork though, not a newer version, so none of it's code was left in 5, though perhaps some was copied over since 5 does have some functionality of 3. However, the point is, the base they started with when making 5 would be 2, not 3.)


Anyway, for now I'm just having to manually block the phone home, but, the address "waweb-ntc0l-0.winamp.com" is a pretty simplistic naming system and I'm thinking that instead of having to manually list out all the addresses it attempts to connect to, if someone knows of a tool that can just show all addresses registered to winamp, that probably would suffice. I for one don't like all my software trying to find out if there's a newer version automatically either. I update when I need to update, not when I'm sick of nag screens telling me to update. (PS. NEVER EVER set software to just automatically update without even telling you. I've learned the hard way that a huge number of problems crop up that way, and it's a royal pain to figure out just what's causing the problem when that happens.) I swear though, I'm tempted to just block all addresses to winamp and manually add only the one shoutcast server I routinely use.

 

[Terpfen]

I would think that disabling "report anonymous usage statistics" along with unchecking "check for new version at startup," plus whatever may be going on in your media library, would be enough to stop Winamp from calling home. I've yet to have a report from my firewall of Winamp trying to connect to some server.

 

[Shadow2531]

@Nazo

Unchecking the Media Library setting that I described solved my problem.
What if you install the Media library and then unchecked that option?

The Media Library might just provide an interface for unchecking the option and the option might be enabled and still have an effect even if the media library isn't installed. That of course would be silly, but we shouldn't assume that just because you don't have the media library, winamp's not trying to check for new channels on exit.

 

[Nazo]

If it's not installed, it's simply not there. It can't do anything because nothing exists to do anything. If we have nonexistant software performing commands, well, I think phoning home will be the least of my worries... That said, before I removed it from my system, I did uncheck the option out of habit (whenever I first setup a software, I dig through all the setup pages and disable/enable any options that I can understand, which is usually a good number of them, and anything along the lines of checking for updates or anything else automatically would be high in the list of things I'd disable in any program.)

And Terpfen, just to be clear, you definitely have it set where it WOULD tell you, right? I just ask because if you set it to ignore all attempts by winamp to access the internet since it would get annoying after a while of connecting to shoutcast servers, then it definitly wouldn't say a thing. That said, if what you say is true, then there definitely is something somewhere in there causing it to do this.

 

[Terpfen]

And Terpfen, just to be clear, you definitely have it set where it WOULD tell you, right?

Correct. Kerio alerts me if an application tries to access the internet. In Winamp's case, just unchecking the relevant options has kept it from calling home.

If you're that paranoid about it, you can get a slightly older 5.x version, or even go back to 2.x.

 

[Nazo]

Not paranoid, just annoyed and curious. It's not particularly hard to block it, but, I shouldn't have to. If it's just checking media updates or something it's harmless, but, if they are starting to collect information, I think we should know. In particular, I'm thinking of what happened last time AOL aquired a software I used a lot. Winamp they seem to have kept their dirty paws off of so far, but, when they aquired ICQ way back when, it became a huge bloated buggy software with ads and I think now has even resorted to spyware. Heh, good thing I don't use ICQ anymore, but, you get the idea. Ok, people who got fed up with it made 3rd party software, but, the point is that ICQ itself went from being a nice simple little tool to something terrible once such a policy began. Heck, there are probably windows ports of XMMS if Winamp goes down the tubes, so people could make an almost seamless switch, and, failing that, things like Foobar2k, but, Winamp is a NICE player, and I don't want it to go downhill.

 

[Terpfen]

ICQ, even ICQ Lite, was never lightweight or bloat-free to begin with, but that's another story...

Really, Winamp dials home because you've somehow configured its settings so that it's required to. It may even be something as obscure as the "check for codec updates" in the installer, but it's still an event that occurs because the user selected an option that requires it.

I'm more worried about Google's amassing of user information via Google Desktop Search, tracking cookies, and GMail than I am about AOL knowing that I listen to video game music.

 

[Nazo]

Really, Winamp dials home because you've somehow configured its settings so that it's required to. It may even be something as obscure as the "check for codec updates" in the installer, but it's still an event that occurs because the user selected an option that requires it.

Except that I keep telling you "the user" has EXPLICITELY deselected any option that could involve connecting to the internet at any time other than when "the user" explicitely tells it to connect to a shoutcast server (or loads a playlist with such a URL.) Currently I have no shoutcast servers loaded into any "favorites" type of thing, and my playlist is empty of any non-local files. I have dug through every page and that includes the media library page to ensure that not one option is enabled which could be doing this.

I'm more worried about Google's amassing of user information via Google Desktop Search, tracking cookies, and GMail than I am about AOL knowing that I listen to video game music.

I agree. I'm more worried about that too, though I must point out that Winamp can collect more than "x number of users listening to y genre" type info even with ID3 tags alone, and there's a lot it can get from other means such as filename, addresses of shoutcast servers listened to, etc. Nonetheless, I do agree that I'm not actually worried since I can just block this so much as I'm annoyed on principle. However, besides the whole principle of the thing part, there's the fact that my original point still stands. IF it were to start doing such things, it's only a matter of time before it moves on from phoning home with a little info about what files are listened to from installing spyware to track what games you play and what sites you visit. At the very least, they might do like they did with ICQ and start running ads... Before you argue "don't upgrade" a lot of us need the occasional new feature rather than using ancient outdated software. Don't upgrade isn't a solution, it's just replacing one problem with another one.

BTW, a good while back I started a thread about Google's rather iffy privacy policy pointing especially at some info on googlewatch. The general consensus was "put on your tinfoil hat and leave us alone." Still, no one disagreed that it's quite clear Google is able to sell rather a shocking amount of info to people. Yes, sell. They say they won't sell to "untrusted" companies, but they define "trust" so I have a suspicion that "trust" is defined as "$100 under the table" or something along those lines (ok, probably more money than that.) Scary thing is, it's 100% legal.

Oh, and "ICQ Lite" and other such incarnates came after AOL's aquisition. Mind you, it wasn't 100% crash free, and it wasn't 100% bloat free, but, it was free of ads and rarely ever crashed or slowed down my system way back in those days -- and back then I was pretty far behind CPU-wise. (I believe this would be when I had a Pentium-90 while everyone else had Pentium 2s or at least those few rare P1s with MMX.)

EDIT: Ah HA. It is the media library. Well, perhaps there is a bug because even in the advanced options it was set to not check anything. Still, I deleted the DLL file and winamp stopped doing that. I guess uninstall means "hide from user" rather than what I personally define as uninstall. I just love how companies get their own little dictionary that isn't shared with us users.

 

[Terpfen]

EDIT: Ah HA. It is the media library. Well, perhaps there is a bug because even in the advanced options it was set to not check anything. Still, I deleted the DLL file and winamp stopped doing that. I guess uninstall means "hide from user" rather than what I personally define as uninstall. I just love how companies get their own little dictionary that isn't shared with us users.

Yep, thought so. Glad you found the problem.