I’ve been using the Freegal app for several years. The fact that it’s a free* streaming service that gives access to most of the Sony/Columbia catalog is a great feature for those of us who don’t subscribe to one of the commerical streaming platforms. You can access complete catalogs from great artists, such as Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, etc. (but not The Beatles even though they’re owned by Sony!). A key problem with the app is that often it goes to sleep after completing a song. You have to manually switch on your phone and enter the app to get the next song playing. This doesn’t always happen, and I’m not sure if it’s just for certain albums, but it certainly happens a lot. If you’re streaming from the comfort of your home, then it’s just an annoyance. If you’re streaming while driving your car then it can be downright dangerous to have to manually start the app playing again (which is why I don’t use it when I’m driving!). It’s been like this for years so I’ve no expectation of them fixing it.The other main problem is not to do with the app specifically. Many of the songs I’ve listened to have little glitches in them that can be quite annoying. I think it mainly affects older songs in the catalog. An example I heard recently is the second half of Kate Bush’s “Aerial” album. If you download the songs instead of streaming then I’ve found the songs to be perfectly OK, but you’re limited in how many songs you can download each week and a lot of songs can’t be downloaded (e.g., the Kate Bush album I mentioned). I’ve tried complaining to the Freegal customer service, but with no success.* It’s not really free. Your tax dollars go to your library, which then pays Sony for the service.

1. The last time I updated the app, the “Wish List” option was gone and with it went my entire “Wish List”. It had to be researched again, taking hours. 2. The Wish List was gone and replaced by “Favorites”, but when songs are downloaded from the Favorites, they are not automatically removed from Favorites like previously with “Wish List”. Now, I need to individually choose songs to “Remove from Favorites”. Still, they visually remain after removing until the App is closed and re-opened.3. Also, when moving songs from Search to Favorites, the app puts several of each song (ie. I save 3 songs, but 15 appear on the Fav list).4. The App catalog of songs & artists is not completely cross-referenced. A search for a song title might yield one list, while a search of the original artist may not even contain the same song and vice versa. Also, a searched for song that yields “no results” can sometimes be found in it’s original form on a “Best of …” album. All in all, I still very much appreciate what I get for free… but it frequently takes some extra work on my end. Thanks and keep working on it!!

I just came back to Freegal after being away for a long while. I was away because honestly, I forgot about it. You only get a few song a week but hey, they are free! You have to have the time and patience to sort through and find the songs and artists and listen to it completely before you download it. I love that they give you a wishlist for when you’ve met your limit for the week you can add to your wishlist for the next week. Like I said, it takes a lot of time but if you hang in there you can build a great collection and sort them into playlist.

I have been downloading songs off the freegal website for months now with access from my library card. However, the audio streaming quality on the desktop website always left something to be desired. The audio quality on the app is much better! The music selection on here can be a bit eclectic, but I have still found lots of great stuff! A good way to search out good or popular songs is to check the playlists different public libraries put together. And it’s all free! (well, payed for by taxes. Support your public libraries for great services like this!)