for some time I’ve been looking for a decent audio player on Android for online radio stations that works well with direct stream URLs and older / smaller devices with less free memory (TuneIn, and even the VLC player beta hog a lot of memory on these (tunein crashed an older device to the point I had to reinstall the ROM image – annoying as I had just set up that one with my personal preferences). I dislike the concept of “unique” apps for each station (they are nearly always just some ad data gathering); and can’t install them on two of my Android devices anyway.

Recent Android devices do not seem to play m3u playlists from a link by default (irrespective of whether the data is mp3 or aac format) as they can all handle the file formats; the old Archos internet radio can do this. I tried VLC beta but it wasn’t that easy to use (it doesn’t auto start on the devices I use, I have to click on the player icon again and pick out the URL from the history); and on the older HTC one it locks up after a bit of listening; no good for even trying to listen on the move.

Tried various others but none worked with direct URLs; others insisted on installing some “ad supported” network. Finally I managed to find this (its apparently a port of a Linux application). It does have small ads at the top if you are on a mobile network and thus cannot use adblock plus ; if i’m listening on foot or on my bike I won’t be looking at the screen anyway. at least it actually shows correct metadata without excessive lag; TBH its the first player I’ve found that has equivalent functionality to a desktop app..( at least the developer is 100% open and honest about ads and what is done with the data gathered)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.deadbeef.android

As for ads, I recently read an article about online marketing which pointed out the researchers have learned the hard way that the folk they most want to reach (people aged 30-50 who have a bit more spare cash than a skint youth) are avoiding buying stuff via phones/tablets because of security fears and it is difficult to enter card data on a small screen, getting passwords / codes wrong can result in your card being locked! So all people want from mobile ads is a link for free telephone call answered by a human being in order to ask more about the product (which may or may not result in a sale), exactly what many companies are trying to avoid spending money on :laugh_at: