Posted by typingcat on 11/04/05 14:38

Actually I use WinAmp 5.1 Lite to play mp3s for most cases. It consumes
very little cpu cycle, thus does not interfere with my other working
applications. I sometimes use Windows Media Player 10 to compensate the
lack of media library of it. But recently I had to install iTunes. The
main reason was to subscribe and listen to podcasts.

There are many good podcasts listed on iTunes podcasts library page.
I'm sure that is a web page but when I tried to open the url with
Internet Explorer, it redirected to another page, preventing me from
accessing it. I know most of (or all of) them are not from Apples and
have their own homepage for subscription but it's hard to find them
without iTunes' podcast library. Actually I usually listen to Japanese
podcasts and it's really hard to search for the addresses of them.
Thanks to iTunes, it became very easy.

But there are several problems with iTunes.
1)It forces me to install QuickTime, though I only play mp3s from
podcasts
2)It installs iPod servies and doesn't provide any option to remove it.
(I don't have iPod)
3)It consumes much disk space. (100MBs just to listen to podcasts?)
4)It's very slow. Especially the embedded podcasts library web page.
5)It installs a CD-ROM driver (for ripping mp3s from CD?). I'd removed
it with Security Task Manager and all CD-ROM drives got disappeared
from My Computer. I had to restore it.

I hope Applie would allow to access its podcasts libary page from
normal web browsers. Or how about a light-weight version of iTunes only
for podcasts? I think there are many people who are implicitly forced
to install iTunes to use podcasts. I saw many Japanese podcasts web
sites recommending to install iTunes to listen to their podcasts.

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