Downloads

I must admit, at first I didn't really see the point of controlling a media player from within a Web browser. Then I tried it using FoxyTunes. Listening to music is something a lot of users, including myself I now realize, do while browsing. As a matter of fact, a lot of people spend a whole lot of time browsing for tunes and information about said tunes. That's where FoxyTunes earns its keep; It interfaces to its own FoxyTune Planet Web site (beta) which is one of the cleaner, more comprehensive music info sites I've run into, at least for the artists it recognized--which seemed to be everyone I knew.

The list of media players that FoxyTunes (IE and Firefox) will control is pretty massive and includes the biggies like iTunes, Windows Media Player, and WinAmp. New in this latest version is support for Yahoo! Media Player. I tested the Firefox version and it fits a lot of stuff nicely into the status bar at the bottom of the browser window including all the usual transport controls (play, stop, etc.) as well as the name of the current song, a configuration menu and a volume slider.

As I mentioned, FoxyTunes interfaces to the FoxyTunes Planet site and when you click on the goto icon you're automatically transported to the page that matches the artist/song/album currently playing. It's pretty neat to see the lyrics the song you're playing pop up with such little fuss. FoxyTunes Planet presents a lot of information and it presents it in a very pleasant, easy-to-digest manner. It's worth looking at in and of itself.

I was expecting to install FoxyTunes and then dump it when I was finished reviewing it, as I do with most software. Instead, I'm leaving it installed, which is about the highest compliment I can pay any piece of software.

--Jon L. Jacobi