When I hold my mouse above an MP3 in a folder, the bitrate is very high, it's saying 452kbps for a file that should be 224kbps?

I'm using winamp as my default music player.

a lot of mp3's are encoded with vbr(variable bitrate) that confuses windoze

personally I think variable is a sign of amateur's work

cbr(constant bitrate) is much safer

Your mistake.

MP3 players have improved in leaps and strides over the last 10 years. Most now support VBR. And VBR delivers more consistent quality than CBR. CBR should now only be used when compatibility with very limited hardware is a concern.

I took a sampling of several mp3's from the wild, all were the most popular ones, they were mostly cbr

about 1/3 were vbr

for use on a smaller memory mp3 player they would be more efficient at lower bitrate, I don't fool with anything less than 192 tho or mp3 players

Old devices still get confused about REAL bitrates when VBR is used.

VBR is advanced, CBR is standard.