Free Internet Radio Streaming

Location : Reading, England.

If you've ever wondered about radio streaming on the internet, here are 3 free services available over the internet :-

Pandora.com
I'm currently using this because I like the fact that you don't have to install anything extra on your computer. The radio works off your computer browser. So that means you can listen to it from anywhere - as long as the computer has broadband internet connection and speakers. Broadband is recommended because they stream at a rate of 128Kbps which is excellent quality, almost the same as CD(some say 160Kbps or 192Kbps is the true CD sound quality bitrate). You type in a song or artist name and the radio will automatically start playing songs in similiar genre consecutively and at random. Pandora lets you listen to a few songs to try them out. After that, you are required to register with them providing a username(your email), password, year of birth and a US Zip code(just blag 90210 or something). It's really nice to just come home, simply open up a browser, navigate to pandora.com and it automatically plays music with good sound quality off the browser.

Last.fm
This service is great if you are the type of person who wants to listen to what everyone else is listening to. Last.fm requires you to install on your computer a plugin(define) to your media player(like Winamp, iTunes or Windows Media Player, etc.) and a separate program(which is the Last.fm radio player itself). The plugin in your media player sends data back to Last.fm and tells them what songs are playing on your media player. This information helps them to compile statistics on what new music people are listening to, which ones are being played the most, etc. It's a clever idea. Last.fm also streams radio at 128Kbps, requires you to create an account with a username and password. Email provision is optional. When I was using this player, I noticed the stream wasn't as smooth as Pandora.com which shouldn't be the case because I have excellent bandwidth(off the charts of normality). Warning : I have experienced some stalling problems during DVD playback with Windows Media Player after installing the plugin. The only remedy I found is to deactivate the plugin for DVD to run smoothly again. Don't know how to remove the plugin.

Di.fm
This radio station is excellent if you are looking for music of different genres, all on the main page. Anything that's synthesized is available - Chillout, Trance, Euro Dance, Progressive, Lounge, Ambient, Drum n Bass, Breaks, etc. You will need either of these PC media players installed on your computer - Windows Media Player streams at 32Kbps and Winamp streams at 96Kbps. Sound quality is lower than the previous 2 radio stations mentioned(128Kbps) but it's great if you are on a slow internet connection or ok if you are not using good quality speakers. It's also convenient if you want to pick your music based on genres because di.fm provides a wide selection of genres on one webpage. Just click on your choice and it'll automatically open your media player to stream music through. Disadvantage : Not iTunes compatible. Thanks to Chee Yong for the link.

Among these three, I decided to stick with Pandora.com because :-

1. Great sound quality at 128Kbps.
2. Not media player based but browser based.
3. Continuously fresh playlist.
4. The choice of 'creating' your own radio station by choosing what type of artists/songs to compile for a radio station.
5. The option of choosing whether you like a particular song or not to control whether it should be played again or not in the future.