It was for sure. I think I got it free as some kind of bundle deal. I used it alongside ModEdit and FT][.

Considering it was doing 16-bit 44.1 kHz since the early '90s, I sometimes entertain time-travel thoughts of going back to those days, basing a studio around it and just stabilizing on that platform for 30 years without any huge technical jolts to my music-making platform.

I spent years working around the 150-click limit of the demo, finally buying a license in 2004 or so.

I still use it every so often.

My basic audio editing needs were always met by Audacity, but in the 2000s I used to use Goldwave for a specific need: ambient sounds that need to be played in a loop in Half-Life. I can't remember how it's done anymore, but you had to set 2 markers (or at least one), usually at the start and at the end of the sound if it's smoothly loopable. These markers are baked in the resulting 8bit .wav file. Goldwave was the only program I knew that did that.

I thought Adobe bought them, turns out I was thinking of Cool Edit.