Lately I’ve mostly been listening to the radio. The pleasant St. Petersburg Rocks Radio, and the wide selection of SKY.FM stations. However, the best audio backdrop for work or study was Last.fm for me, and it’s quite sad that it went behind a paywall.
A quick search led me to the site tune.ru, which works on a similar principle: I find my favourite Dire Straits there, the browser starts playing, and when the songs end it picks others similar to that artist. On top of that, you can control the playlist, save it, or even just listen to only the songs you’ve added to the playlist manually.
The downside is the absence of a desktop client — Last.fm had one for both Windows and Linux. But launching a browser is no problem.
Two more significant advantages of such internet radio over regular stations streamed via the web:
1. No audio ads 2. A more stable audio stream — no playback pauses, even when actively browsing.
For now I’m listening this way, but I plan to register and explore the service further.