14 DAY TRIAL // Internet radio is becoming more and more a usual thing these days, whether we're speaking about grindcore or worship music, sports news or classical concerts being broadcasted online by terrestrial radio stations. And since people began wandering on the whole web clicking links and waiting for their usual media player to load and play the respective streams, softwares like Internet Radio have been developed.
As the name says it all, the only thing it will do is help you tune in to your favorite online radio and enjoy. While not being a software which actually searches the web for radio stations it is a whole lot more useful the moment you kind of know where to go and listen for the content you like. Basically, it is a directory where you can store an immense number of radio-links and have them at your disposal at any time of night or day. In other words, Internet Radio works like a huge library but, instead of files, it stores the links for your fav radios online.
The Looks
I guess even the producers of the Internet Radio will agree with me as I say that this very nice and good piece of code needs a more professional-looking GUI; not that this one looks really bad, but there are some elements which aren't at all as consistent with the smooth run of the program as I (and for sure others might have expected).
Internet Radio means one window containing almost everything there is about this software, meaning the visualization, stations list, the four Favorite buttons, Play/Stop commands and so on. Some portions of this window are dockable and will leave only the visuals and the stop commands within sight. And about visuals I must add the fact that they looking pretty much the same as the visuals of Windows Media Player and Winamp, except their default setting is "random", therefore being uncontrollable.
The "inconsistency" I was telling you about some lines above resides mostly in having a GUI whose elements look rather bundled together then carefully designed for a compact ID. For example, the volume bar has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the skin as it is XP-native and looks really crappy in the given context! I know that there wasn't too much fuss about developing the GUI for this freeware (and I repeat - VERY NICE - software) but such things are to be avoided for obvious reasons...
A nice thing in Internet Radio is that you have a system clock integrated in the GUI and, just below it, you see the time of the alarm, provided you have set an alarm. Most softwares are not displaying the system time, even if they have plenty of room to do this and this feature is quite a handy one.
Most of the buttons are WinXP-style, while the Stop, Fav's and Dock buttons are "from a different movie" and this really cuts down much from the looks of the Internet Radio. I'd dare suggest a total re-make of this interface and building up a new one, a very "compact" and strong concept without these discrepancies and even a little more ordered displacement of elements. Considering that you won't be tweaking settings to much (if any at all) while running this program and also thinking that it will run in the system tray most of the time, these issues should not be of great importance; but still, having a program that looks at its best is a very good thing no matter what.
The Works
Well, what could you expect from a software whose name is Internet Radio if not allowing you to listen to online stations? This one here is a very cool program, because of some reasons I'll explain immediately; first of all, it's absolutely free so you'll have access to innumerable radio stations on the World Wide Web at technically no cost whatsoever.
The second thing which makes me say Internet Radio is a pretty cool program is the fact that you can manage the list of radio stations with very much ease, as both addition and deletion of stations are such simple tasks that even the most inexperienced user will be able to carry out.
A very nice thing is that you get to set up 4 favorite stations for quick-access: no more browsing the long station-list, just one click and your fav music will play. The Internet Radio comes by default with an immense list of preset radios, but there is virtually no limit for the number of other stations you can add to that list, of course radios of your own choice: just add the URL, a name you like (not necessarily the real name of the station) and there you go!
I didn't like that much the fact that you don't have any data on the radios you're tuning in to: no info on who's currently playing, bitrate and other additional data on the proper song and so on. So far, the radios I have been listening to have had very good sound, so really no problem here, but I can't (and no one could) vouch for all of them. Moreover, one thing that is not handy at all is the fact that you can't set a predefined order in the stations list according to some criteria such as: genre, alphabetical order, bitrate and the likes.
I guess that Internet Radio would rather be looked at as a directory of online stations; it actually does not search for stations, but lets you store their links for further almost instantaneous access. Nevertheless, Internet Radio is one handy tool and I guess the fans of internet radio will enjoy it a lot, especially as it is freeware.
The Good
Internet Radio's best attributes are the totally free operation, the massive list of stations you can build and administer and not to forget the alarm and the quick-access favorites.
The Bad
The worst thing (without being a serious minus) would be the inconsistent GUI. A professional one would surely be a hit!
The Truth
The truth is Internet Radio really rocks! Having such an online radio directory for free and even being granted the possibility to further add your own stations while having also alarms and quicklinks to favorites is simply great!
See the screenshots below and tune in to your fav radios online:
