Screamer - free internet radio

In my last post I wrote about some nut-bar who spent 160 thousand dollars on a 200 year old bottle of vinegar. Nothing particularly wrong with that, except that the man was a oenophile; someone who appreciates or collects wine. So what if it came in a wine bottle with a Chateau Lafite label, it was still nothing more than expensive (very expensive) vinegar. And, you can pick up a bottle of vinegar for under two bucks at “No Frills”. The guy was not a savvy shopper.

I, on the other hand, have an eye for a bargain. My kids interpret that as cheap, but that’s beside the point.

Some of the best deals available out there in cyberspace are in the realm of freeware. Freeware is made available in a variety of disguises, under various distribution licenses. But freeware applications have one thing in common. They’re free. That means no charge and no strings; no banner ads or spyware and no shutting down after 30 days. Now, that’s a bargain!

A few months back I picked up a copy of Screamer, a free internet radio application. The application was developed by a man called David Zidar who lives in Sweden where he studied Computer Science at Mälardalen University. Do not ask me how to pronounce his last name; I have no desire to demonstrate my ignorance in public. Wait a minute, try: eaz-dar. Amazing what you can find on the web these days.

As you can see from the screenshot at the top of the page, there’s no splashy interface. But, it works, and, it works well. Just what does it do? It’s a bloody radio, didn’t I already mention that.

According to the web site, “There is little reason to listen to commercial FM radio anymore, it is an old medium that provides little choice of music and is saturated with ads. For the last couple of years there has been an alternative, streaming internet radio; an alternative that has been somewhat complicated to use. Screamer Radio attempts to remedy this problem by bringing most of the required steps into a single, easy to use, freeware program.”

The application comes with hundreds of “preset” internet radio stations, from every genre of music imaginable: classic rock, jazz and blues, folk and country, reggae, rap and hip hop, etc, etc. You name it; it’s there. One of my favourite stations is from Mayo: Midwest Irish radio

And, you can not only listen to the music, but you can record it using the built in record feature. There are no ads, no spyware and there’s no cost, hidden or otherwise. Nor will it shut down after 30 days.

You can check it all out on the Screamer web site, then, download your free copy.
Go to: Screamer – Free Internet Radio