Pocket Radio Player — a world of radio stations
Deanna McElveen

By Deanna McElveen

Living exactly halfway between two cities means we are on the broadcasting fringe of both cities' radio stations.

Sure, I can listen to Air Supply — if I don't mind The Farm Report being randomly inserted as I drive over hills. But I don't have this issue at home or work, however, thanks to Internet radio.

Internet radio is the accumulation of thousands of radio stations from all over the planet that choose to stream their broadcasts over the Internet. It's like duct-taping a 30,000-foot-high antenna to your clock radio!

There are several programs out there that allow you to listen to Internet radio stations, but most are full of bundleware with way too many features. I don't want to learn a hundred features, I just want my music!

For years, I've been using Pocket Radio Player by German developer Stefan Sarbok. Every time he updates the radio station database or fixes issues, he sends us the new version. He is very active with the program's maintenance, even after 14 years! He is also very clear that his software contains "No ads, no data mining, no user accounts, and 100% free." He's right — it's as clean as a whistle.

There is nothing to install. Just click the file called prp.exe, and the program pops right up.

The first thing you will see when Pocket Radio Player opens is a hand-picked list of radio stations (see Figure 1). When I say hand-picked, I mean the author has selected the best, highest-quality stations he could find — with the aid of his loyal followers. There are a lot of stations.

There is nothing to it. Just double-click a station to start listening.