Bitch enough to people about free music sites demanding money and someone will point you to something better.

In this case, the better is Spiralfrog and the pointer was my dad. He and I were discussing music, one of our favorite topics and I told him about the mess with Last.fm. He in turn told me about Spiralfrog. The name alone tickled me pink.

I’m still checking out all the features on this site and learning how to make it play music for me if I don’t want to download it all. If any of you have used it before I’d love some pointers. What I like about this site, aside from being FREE, is its got a nice selection of music. True, it doesn’t have the massive selection that some music sites have, but it lets you download full albums to your computer. Additionally, as far as I can tell, these can be played on any media play, though they can only be played on select MP3 players (which are listed on the site).

Spiralfrog isn’t perfect, the music you download, while free, is tagged with DRM, which does give it some limitations. Primary limitation is that its locked to YOUR computer and YOUR MP3 player. Anyone else trying to take it off your system and play it on their own is doomed, at least that how DRM was explained to me. I’m hardly omnipotent and am often wrong. Hey I admit to being a techtard, which would be why I converse with my dad as much as I do. This would also be why you read more about entertainment and not how to access your entertainment.

There is not cost to the user, it really IS free, which is just awesome. You are required to register and renew every 30 days, but the only information you ever have to give them is your username and password, that’s all they want. To download the music to your harddrive you do have to download a little widget that takes next to no space, am guessing this widget is how it ensures you don’t go sending this music to your best friend and letting them play it.

So I’m going to go play with this program some more, and I encourage you to check it out. I would love to know what you think of it if you decide to use it. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy some Reba McEntire and ignore the “ews” from the country haters. 

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