Radiola

As I am writing this article, jazz music from an online radio station is playing in the background. That’s because as I am writing this, Radiola is running in the background, playing music from a station called Audiophile Jazz. Several other stations are readily available. You see, Radiola comes with a built-in list of online radio stations; you can listen to any station from the list. And if that is not enough, you can add any station you want to the list.

Radiola is available for multiple platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. Focusing on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, it must be mentioned that Radiola is available as an installer and as a portable version. The installer will have you complete a simple installation process; the portable version will not.

The green-themed Radiola interface is very easy to navigate. The built-in list of radio stations is presented to the left, the stations are nicely sorted into folders, there’s a Filter search box at the bottom that you can use to quickly find any station you want, the volume slider and the play/stop buttons are presented on the right hand side. I’m sure that even novice computer users won’t have any problems figuring out the interface.

As mentioned above, the radio stations that Radiola features are nicely grouped into folders. Said folders can be renamed and deleted; you can easily add a new radio station to an existing folder. If you want to, you can create new folders and you can add radio stations to them. To add a radio station you need only enter a title and a playlist URL.

There’s something quite important that must be mentioned here: Radiola can play online radio stations AND it can record online radio stations.

Radiola is free software. It is a freeware player for online radio stations.

Launch Radiola, pick an online radio station, and this freeware tool will play it. Radiola comes with a built-in list of radio stations and it also allows you to add your own radio stations.