by Jennifer Claerr

Created on: January 11, 2008

There are many free online radio stations available, all of which play great music. Here are some of the best online radio stations which I have used over the years.

Yahoo! Music: Launchcast Radio

Yahoo! Launchcast Radio service is available for free online and is customizable to the user's tastes. All you have to do is rate genres, tracks, artists and albums. After a while, Launchcast Radio becomes trained to your preferences. You can also tell Yahoo! Launchcast Radio which selections you don't like by clicking the red circle with a slash, which rests at the left of the four stars at each track, album and artist. After some time rating and eliminating tracks, your Launchcast Radio personal station will play only selections that you like.

The only downside to Yahoo! Launchcast Radio is the frequent reminders to free online users to "subscribe" to Y! Unlimited, the paid service. They're not really obtrusive but they happen, especially when you're listening to free 30 second samples. You also can't save the Launchcast Radio tracks to your hard drive, or burn them to CD.

However, there is an incredible range of music available online for free on Yahoo! Launchcast Radio. Whatever genre you like, it's almost certain you'll find it here. They include pop, urban, rock, country, dance/electronic, indie/folk, jazz and latin.

Live 365

On Live 365, you can sign up for a free account to listen to many different genres of music online. There are hundreds of stations available for free. Genres include alternative, blues, classical, country, easy listening, electronic/dance, folk, freeform, hip-hop/rap, inspirational, international, jazz, latin, metal, new age, oldies, pop, R&B and rock. Radio Disney is also available for free.

Ads are limited, and usually come up just as you open a station. I have listened online to the free Live365 service for hours without hearing a single ad.
You'll need to sign up for a free account, and provide an email address in order to listen to music. There's nothing to download.

However many of the stations are not available with the free membership. The VIP membership costs between $5.95 and $7.95 per month, depending on your payment plan. You can access thousands of commercial-free stations with no banner or pop-up ads.

Pandora Radio

The online radio station Pandora can be a little bit like Pandora's Box if you're not careful. Like Launchcast Radio, you must program Pandora Radio to play the music you like best. When I first got online to listen to Pandora

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