2w ago

What's a good FREE music streaming service that isn't run by the devil?

I've been trying to get off of Spotify for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, I don't have the money to spend on a Deezer or Tidal subscription, which is required to listen to more than 30 seconds of a song. I also have an extremely large playlist that needs transferring, so I need an unlimited version of FreeYourMusic if it exists. Thanks! Edit: Thanks for all the replies and advice! Unfortunately, I'm too stupid for almost all of it, but I appreciate it anyways. The solution I went with is using Newpipe on Android and a Spotify adblocker called Blockify on pc. Have a good day!

123 comments

Good
Free
Not run by the devil
Pick 2. Actually maybe 1 if you're lucky.
As others have said the high sails are your best bet.
- I see. Good to know. Is there a decent way to block ads on Spotify completely? Either on mobile or desktop.
  
  I'm currently getting ad-free Spotify on Android using XManager
  
  Yes. Go Premium. No ads.
  
  Wait, by "free" are you also expecting ad-free too?
  
  Mobile: Use Firefox Nightly with uBlock Origin and you must follow this https://adminswerk.de/spotify-web-on-android/
  
  xManager spotify. It that still works...
  
  I think revanced has patches to remove ads on a few apps
🚢🦜⚓
You can throw some money at artists periodically, some random $10 donation to whatever their fan site or on merch will probably net them more than a lifetime of listening to their stuff on Spotify, since streaming revenues add up to roughly five atoms of currency per stream or so.
- Why does your comment sound like a jolly accordion?
  
  🪗
- How does one go about that activity?
  
  There's a comm on lemmy.dbzer0.com. Alternatively, google FMHY. When I bailed from Spotify, I just used SpotDL to download all my music a playlist at a time. Worked fine, but might be a bit beyond your skill level to set that up.
  
  There are many ways to capture a stream
- So you're telling me to keep using Spotify but to also start buying some of the artists' stuff sometimes?
  
  Personally I just use Pandora and YouTube ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
  Adblock was assumed
  
  Yo ho, yo ho...
Yo, ho, haul together,
HOIST THE COLORS HIGH! 🏴‍☠️
- Yes, but how? Keep in mind, I know nothing about computers, and rather little about the practice. I've downloaded a few pdfs, and I have a site that I use to watch a couple shows, but that's it.
  
  I'm not an expert, ask in !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com (btw, this comm is blocked by some instaces)
radio
and it comes with free radio waves
its got ads but you don't have to pay for them in bandwidth; the radio station pays for them.
get a radio
- @FerretyFever0@fedia.io
  There are literally thousands of free streaming radio stations on the Internet. This is a good place to start. Many have no ads, even.
  ETA: That site I linked seems to be having problems ATM. This app for Android will get you going straight away. Hasn't been updated in a couple years, but still works great, and even has a record function.
  
  I mean ... you are saying the same thing about Spotify.
  You don't want a solution ... you want to argue. Ciaobaby
- I don't think that most radio stations play much of what I listen to. My playlist is 7000 songs. I'm trying to sacrifice as little of it as I can.
- Except ClearChannel has taken over a massive number of stations
Buy on bandcamp and buy cds to rip them. Then host your own plex/jellyfin/subsonic server.
- I mean, that's cool but OP even wrote the "free" part in capitals. Not saying it is realistic to ask for that but it's pretty clear they don't want to pay.
  
  Yup my bad, didn't have my coffee yet :)
- Op said free, also hosting your own server isn't something everyone has the knowledge, time, and resources to do.
- This is the way.
I can't believe no one has mentioned Radio Paradise. Good music. Free app on Android / iOS.
Radio Paradise
Also: SomaFM. Same as above: free, good content, not managed by the devil.
Notable mention: Kexp, The Current
- You guys must be new to online music scene...
  Your comment was wholesome until this part.
  
  Lemmy: You're too sensitive. Don't take online comments too seriously. A lot gets lost in text (tone, for instance). It was meant more tongue in cheek. We're all Kumbaya here. I took it out anyway. Cheers
- SomaFM has been up a remarkable number of years, more or less in its current format. It's not everyone's jam, but props to them to keep a good thing going.
  
  It's pretty amazing and scartches a weird itch I can't get elsewhere. But I know it's not everyone's cup of tea
- Radio Paradise is the best! I even throw a few dollars their way every month to keep it going.
Piracy :3
- Not to be a party pooper but piracy too is run by the devil. You dont notice it because its more hidden that the fuckfaces at google, meta, amazon etc but its still run by mobsters and people like (but not specifically) andrew tate.
  Piracy groups dont do and release things just for fun you know :p Source: ive dug a bit too deep into console piracy scenes since gamecube-days. Its all ran by one fuckface : Max 'MAXiMiLiEN' Louarn.
  The fuckwad has ran off with millions in tool sales, ad revenue, and downloads while he gives 0 shits about bricking your consoles. If apple or whoever is bad for such practice's, he is too.
  And thats just console piracy stuff, im sure movies, series and music is the same thing, or worse
  
  What the hell are you talking about? There's still lots of peer to peer trackers and most make their money asking users for donations or selling premium status. I've been using some for years and haven't spent a dollar.
  
  if you are paying money to pirate something than you are pirating wrong
Start stocking up on CDs and ripping them to FLAC yourself, and self-host those rips on an MPD server. Free streaming from a server you own and control the content on.
the Hoopla app is available for free through public libraries. you can download 15 items (music, movies, books) each month for a week at a time
- Libraries typically have CDs too, which you can rip.
Did you know you can play music without a service?
Get music, press play. Amazing!
Been doing it for decades
Tidal and Deezer are pretty devilish as they support Israel
- FUCK! I switched from spotify to Tidal... Any other paid app you can recommend that isn't supporting a genocide and generally less shitty to artists, and like everyone?
  EDIT: Qobuz seems to be recommended, gonna have a look... or maybe do some light sailing... really don't want to go back to doing fucking interviews for what.cd (now-defunct) and spend hours organising shit.
  
  Well shit. Guess it's time to self host....
  Wait... Am I the devil now?
Psst... https://fmhy.pages.dev/
- or just fmhy.net in short
Free and ad-free music streaming (even with some limited local downloads!) supported through many public libraries:
Freegal Music
Create your account with your public library card and gain access to all the music unlimited ad-free streaming. I also get 5 free downloads of songs a week for local storage, but I don't know if that varies by library. There is a web client and the Android app is pretty decent too.
- This is cool. Not avilable in Drumpf land though.
  
  Sadly I'm in the same type of land, but it is available in my library system. In my state, you are allowed to get a library card at any public library in the state. Even if your public library system may not have it, the next down over and if your state works the same as mine, you could get a library card there and use the service for free.
  Texas:
  Alabama:
  South Carolina:
- Waaah, we don't have this. We have Hoopla music but the catalog looks so random. Somehow the freaking Lakeland library system has that but not Hillsborough? I will ask them I guess. I keep the YouTube music because the family plan is ok and the kids & husband use the videos, and their catalog is deep and interface getting better.
- What app is that?
  
  Thunder
I usually just use YouTube
- isn't run by the devil
soma.fm I've discovered a lot of cool artists. Love the groove salad channel.
- 80 underground is soo nice too, love soma
- Fantastic recommendation. Thanks!
Shazam app with youtube.com plus ezmp3.cc
Long answer:
Cloud infrastructure is expensive. You won't find any free streaming platform.
The best route is to manage your own Playlist manually.
Workflow:
Interesting music playing on radio/party

-‐> shazam to know title and artist -‐> search youtube.com for that title and artist --> copy url of video that best matches --> paste url on ezmp3.cc for converting to audio --> await conversion, download generated audio --> Use a smart-mp3-tags app to add tags and album art automatically
Prons:
until now, i've paid $0 for music I listen to. Evil bastard, I know. I, however, have bought poweramp for $5. Best purchase yet.
you will find any music this way no matter how niche and weird it is. Unlike surfing the pirate ship
bonus: you most definitely will find your favorite audiobooks.
Cons:
no music discovery features. Which is truly the only downside you can't replace.
no backup in case of device loss, so you better make copies manually
- Just use yt-dlp -x $SONG_URL to download the audio directly.
  
  LOL, OP was looking for an alternative to streaming platform, not an introduction to this whole new universe of terminal,
  Plus, yt-dlp doesn't work (at least to my knowledge) on a smartphone (maybe on termux? I dunno, haven't tried it)
  
  You just need -x?
  I used yt-dlp -t mp3 $partBehind?v= the entire time
- Or skip the middleman, and just use YTDLnis on Android to grab from YT directly.
Bandcamp kinda counts
- I post a lot of bandcamp links on !gothindustrial@lemmy.world, but apparently bandcamp got bought out and will inevitably go down the road of enshittification.
  
  It's been bought out before, for now it seems to be doing just fine
- Or the Android equivalent, YTDLnis.
Maybe pick a few radio stations you like.
I donated to rtrfm.com.au
- There's a local non-profit station that plays the wildest stuff, and you never know what you're going to get. They play stuff I've never heard of about 70% of the time.
  https://themoon.fm/
  They're great! And free of course.
  
  Ofc it's in Oregon lol. Thanks for the recommendation.
Jango.com
Re: music transfer app
I quite liked Playlisty.
Relatively cheap and unlocked forever, unlike some who have IAP that are double the price and only allow full app access for a few weeks/month.
KEXP.org
Torrent + Winamp
Funkwhale. But it is hard to find working instances. It is a part of the fediverse.
- I can’t be the only person who first read “Fuckwhale”
  
  That is a very different site.
Wavlake is a good option. Keep in mind, though, that no popular music of today (think The Weekend, Eilish, etc.) will be on this platform. Instead, it'll be Bitcoiners who also produce music and podcasts.
You don't have to use BTC with a Lightning Network wallet, though, as that's option. Nostr is another option that you can use, but again, that's optional.
Otherwise, use a net to catch the music you want. If you get the reference, then you know I'm a viewer of Louis Rossmann's content.
transistor
https://github.com/mostafaalagamy/Metrolist alternate youtube music app. youtube account recommended. no ads. frequent updates. oled support.
https://github.com/badmannersteam/murglar-downloads/releases desktop and droid app. supports russian stream services, deezer, soundcloud. no ads.
https://moddroid.com/apps/music/deezer-hq/ cracked deezer. no ads.
you can look around for cracked spotify or other cracked stuff on the mobilism forums, but spotify sometimes bans those cliens, and might shadowban your account as well.
whatever you do, you gonna support the devil by choosing any mainstream music service. so keep using them for free and support the bands with money or going to concerts. discs are overrated, merch gives them low commission.
if you wait a few hours the "you should selfhost" comments will arrive.
Download music using Nicotine+, stream music from youtube.
Sorry it's run by the devil, but it is free. On your phone you can listen without ads if you use an adblocker with the desktop version of the site.
You can also listen to internet radio using Pandora. Pithos is a free client that doesn't play ads. Adblockers work on the desktop site, and you can download Blokada 5 from their website to block ads on the Android app.
Just pirate, use a decent vpn and soulseek. For a vpn, I would reccomend proton or mullvad, soulseek is a peer to peer music sharing program. Extremely higb quality music. If you get into DAP's check out fiio for neat music players.
Is Quobuz free?
- Doesn't look like it.
- Of course it isn't.
Soulseek. It's Napster for today. I share an ass load on there.
Previously a program called "sidify" was able to rip full quality audio files from Spotify including a Playlist
Unsure if it still works but its worth checking out. However, there's just one issue: the "download" is the length of each song played end to end.
Worth it if you dont have any other options
- there's another one called SpotDL. It is pretty decent.
- If the full playtime is required to download, then it's probably not "full quality", but re-encoding it as it plays which will definitely not satisfy quality snobs.
If you live in Canada, CBC Radio/Music. Fucking banger songs and everyone sleeps on CBC Radio/Music.
iBroadcast
been using it for years now, devs are great and very responsive

123 comments