BS.Player

Still shipping, about one release every three years

Zombie
19902026

BS.Player was the default way a great many people watched downloaded video in the early 2000s: it played almost any file, handled subtitles better than anything else, and ran on hardware that choked on the alternatives. It is Slovenian, it claims 70 million users, and it is still here, releasing a build every few years to a world that no longer needs it.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1999
  2. 1999 Launch
    Boris Voglar writes his own player

    No player of the day handled video well without a codec hunt, so he built one.

  3. 2000
  4. 2000 Launch
    BS.Player reaches the web

    It spreads on two strengths: it plays anything, and it runs on slow machines.

  5. 2001
  6. 2001 Feature
    Webteh is founded

    Voglar and the Marinčič brothers turn the player into a company.

  7. 2006
  8. 2006 Feature
    The free version ships with WhenU Save!

    Adware funds the free build, with PRO sold as the way to remove it.

  9. 2010
  10. 2010 Decline
    VLC and built-in codecs take the ground

    The problem BS.Player existed to solve stops being a problem.

  11. 2023
  12. 28 March 2023 Version
    Version 2.78 build 1094

    The last release before a gap of nearly two and a half years.

  13. 2025
  14. 26 August 2025 Version
    Version 2.79 build 1095

    Still shipping, twenty five years after the first release.

The site through time

Browse bsplayer.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 2026 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Boris Voglar 1999–2001 Founded Wrote the first version alone, as Boris Software player
Webteh d.o.o. 2001–now Founded Founded by Voglar with Matjaž and Andrej Marinčič. The player is maintained today by ITSOL, Boris Voglar s.p.

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Downloads ▲ 70 million 2020 Estimated Figure claimed by the developer on its own site, never independently audited

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Not shut down. Version 2.79 build 1095 shipped on 26 August 2025, two and a half years after the previous release. The site still sells the PRO licence, and the news page has not been updated since Christmas 2022.

Our analysis: BS.Player solved a problem that stopped existing. It was the player that played anything without hunting for codecs, on a slow machine. Windows started shipping codecs, VLC made the same promise for free and open, and video moved into the browser. Nothing killed BS.Player. The reason to install it simply went away.

History [edit]

A player because nothing else worked

In 1999 Boris Voglar, a computer science graduate in Slovenia, tried to play a video file and could not. Most media players of the day handled audio and treated video as an afterthought, and the ones that managed it demanded a codec hunt first. So he wrote his own, and called it Boris Software player. BS.Player reached the web in 2000.

Two things made it spread. It played almost anything without the user installing anything, and it was light enough to run on the modest machines most people actually owned. Then there were the subtitles. BS.Player handled external subtitle files better than any competitor, could shift their timing on the fly, and later fetched them automatically. In countries where everything foreign is subtitled rather than dubbed, that was not a feature, it was the whole reason to use it.

In 2001 Voglar founded Webteh with Matjaž and Andrej Marinčič to run it properly. The company claims more than 70 million installations and translations into over 90 languages.

The adware years

The free version was funded the way a lot of free Windows software was funded in that period. Archived copies of the site from 2006 carry a notice that the installer includes WhenU Save!, described there as delivering "contextually relevant coupons and comparative shopping results directly to consumers desktops". The pitch was that you could use BS.Player free with the ads, or pay for PRO and remove them.

It was normal for its time and it is part of why the player is remembered fondly by some and warily by others.

Not dead, just finished

BS.Player never shut down, which is why this entry is filed as a zombie rather than a death. The site works, the PRO licence is still for sale, and builds still appear: 2.78 in June 2022, 2.78 again in March 2023, then 2.79 build 1095 on 26 August 2025. The news page stopped at a Christmas message for 2023. Webteh itself has been wound back, and the operating entity behind the player today is a sole proprietorship, ITSOL, Boris Voglar s.p.

What ended was the need. Windows learned to play video out of the box, VLC offered the same promise for free and open source, and most video moved into a browser tab. BS.Player is one of the more graceful cases in this encyclopedia: nobody sued it, no acquirer switched it off, and its author never abandoned it. The world just stopped needing a program to play a file.

Similar projects

Winamp It really whips the llama's ass 1997–2013 RealPlayer Buffering… buffering… 1995–now Grooveshark All the music, none of the licences 2007–2015 Windows Media Center The living-room PC that arrived before streaming 2002–2015 Google Play Music Your music locker, repossessed 2011–2020 Rdio The prettiest streaming service that ever lost 2010–2015

Sources [edit]

  1. BS.Player history Webteh 1 January 2025 [archived]
  2. Prodor slovenskega znanja: BS.Player RTV Slovenija 1 January 2007 [archived]
  3. BS.Player old versions FileHorse 26 August 2025 [archived]

Last verified: 13 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).