Freeware Mission – Best Free Media Players

by Johnny Karp 27 July 2008 15 Comments

The Freeware Mission continues! Today I’m going to tell you which are the Best Free Media Players (video and audio). The choice was quite simple, because I was using those freeware programs for a long time now.

Video Player

Yes, it’s GOM Player, in my opinion the best and most complete media player out there. I reviewed it a while ago, and I still think it’s the best option. Here’s a quick recap of the features:
- Codec Finder
- Plays broken files
- Powerful Subtitle Support
- Plays almost any video file format
- Screen Capture
- and a lot more

You can download GOM Player from here, it’s free!

My Evaluation	10
Operating System	Windows All
Size	5.57 MB
Author	Gretech Corp.
Version Tested	2.1.9.3754

Audio Player

The audio player that I’ve been using for a few years now is… Quintessential Player (QCD). Why do I like it? It’s lightweight and highly customizable (there are a lot of skins and plug-ins that you can use), it can rip audio CDs, and it supports virtually any type of audio file you can think of:
• MP1
• WAV
• MP3 streaming
• MP2
• CD audio
• WMA streaming
• MP3
• CD digital audio
• M1V, M2V
• AVI, ASF
• WMA, WMV (Windows Media Audio)
• Standard playlist files (PLS and M3U)
• Ogg Vorbis (an open source compression algorithm similar to MP3)
With the addition of input plug-ins QCD can also support formats such as:
• AAC
• MIDI
• MPEG Plus (MPC, MP+, MPP)
• FLAC
• Monkey’s Audio (APE, MAC)
• Speex
• Modules (MOD, S3M, XM, IT)
• MP4
• VQF
• WavePack
• Windows Media

You can download Quintessential Player from here, it’s free!

My Evaluation	10
Operating System	Windows All
Size	2.3 MB
Author	Quinware
Version Tested	4.51

The Freeware Mission will continue, stay tuned for more!

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If you have any trouble with this software just leave a comment, I’ll help you out!

15 Comments »

Caretaker said:

For who prefer a more "fully" audioplayer, on windows nothing for now is better than atunes (http://www.atunes.org).

As so much functions that other player have not (a real media library, lyrics & cover autodownload, LastFM support, ecc.).

# 5 September 2008 at 4:09 am

Johnny Karp said:

@caretaker
Thanks for the suggestion, I admit that aTunes looks quite promising. I didn’t know it but I curious to test it

# 5 September 2008 at 4:57 am

John Craven said:

foobar2k is the superior audio player…

# 19 September 2008 at 9:49 am

USGroup1 said:

The best audio player by far is KMPlayer.

# 1 October 2008 at 4:58 am

Fritura said:

I’ve tried tons of players but like usgroup1 said before: KMPlayer is by far the best player.
Many options and plays all mediafiles.

Anyway thumbs up for this great site.

# 17 October 2008 at 11:56 am

N008D35TR0Y3R said:

I’ve tried tons of players but like usgroup1 said before: KMPlayer is by far the best player.
Many options and plays all mediafiles.

Anyway thumbs up for this great site.

i second that.
i have been using kmplayer for a while, and now i am even video capturing with it, and watching tv using my old tv tuner, …and yes it has all capabilites 4 watching dvb-t and analog tv

# 19 October 2008 at 8:59 am

Johnny Karp said:

I’ll add KMPlayer to the “to be tested” list. Thanks for your input.

# 19 October 2008 at 11:06 am

paloja@netti.fi said:

How about media monkey, it superior file handling, renaming and taggin is very good. And for ipod users I prefer media monkey much better than itunes, only that if you use a lot of video and games with your ipod, then you’ll have to use itunes…

# 1 November 2008 at 12:15 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Paloja
I agree, Media Monkey is a good program and I’ve been using it a year or two ago. But since I don’t mind tagging and such stuff I prefer QCD.

# 4 November 2008 at 5:15 am

ela said:

Hi! by far i have found VLC media player (Videolan) to be my fave media player- it plays anything i throw at it and open source too!
Happy Birthday freeware mission! Keep up the good work for all of us!

# 6 March 2009 at 2:55 am

Johnny Karp (author) said:

@ Ela
Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your view.

# 6 March 2009 at 9:14 am

VwG said:

I use four players which are the best in my opinion: Media Monkey, Media Jukebox, Quintessential Media Player, and finally, Jet Audio. Jajuk and Spider Player follow closely behind and round out the total listening experience.

# 24 May 2009 at 6:53 am

Johnny Karp (author) said:

@VwG
I guess you’re quite passionate about music, right?

# 24 May 2009 at 7:39 am

fritura said:

Hi, Johnny K

Did you test The KMPlayer already like you mentoined on October 19th last year?
You should, it’s by far still the best Mediaplayer.

# 31 May 2009 at 5:46 pm

Johnny Karp (author) said:

@fritura
I have installed KMPlayer, it’s still installed on my PC and I tried it a few times. It looks good, nice interface, but I have to find some spare time to dedicate more to testing it and to see if it really is the best or not. There’s another program that impressed me more so far, it’s called SMPlayer, open source.

# 31 May 2009 at 7:33 pm