Any way to listen to music (privately?)
Any way to listen to music (privately?)
I'm going insane. I cannot for the life of me find a suitable way to listen to music privately. I'm on iOS, and I don't know whether to just stick to Apple Music or give up on music in general (I tried, TRIED to go local, but all the apps are shitty). Any way to listen to music and not have your data compromised? Should I just stick to Apple Music and hope that laws change (maybe something like EU's DMA?)
Edit: Hey all! First of all, thank you so much for all the recommendations! I've discovered so many great apps and tools I didn't even know existed (and it has also brought my hopes up for privacy in general). Even though it's still not perfect, I've been using foobar2000 on iOS, downloading music I find (I'm still using Apple Music for discovery, but will probably stop when my subscription ends this month). For desktop I'm using HyperPipe, which although a little buggy at times is so awesome! One thing I do miss about this system is the lack of lyrics. Apple Music has such a beautiful UI when it comes with lyrics, but you can't have it all when it comes to privacy it seems. Thanks for the amazing discussion! I'm so far loving Lemmy ;)
I'll be honest, the only way to listen to music privately is to download it. (And using an opensource music player)
There are Github repositories with CLI programs to download complete Spotify playlists with Youtube and also download their metadata.
there are also CDs and vinyl 🤷
Whoa, you can store music on CDs? That’ll save me a lot of bandwidth!
something brilliant I've found with modern vinyl is a lot of them come with a download card so you can get lossless files.
now if they would just fucking advertise which ones that would be great.
This. There was music before the internet.
I wrote a few scripts to automate this entire process for me:
Any opensource music players for iOS you recommend? I found Flacbox which seems alright (a little buggy but you can't win them all, can you?)
Its not opensource as far as i know, but i use documents5 (or 6 now?) by readdle and its been p good for music
Yeah. Buy it directly from the artist then throw it all into a self hosted service like plex or jellyfin.
Yup. Buy CDs, vinyl or digital from Bandcamp or from the artist direct and then host it on Plex.
I've thought about trying jellyfin but Plexamp is just so nice that I don't think I could leave it.
There is finamp Im told but yeah plexamp is goated
If you only need music streaming, then a service like Navidrome may be better.
Fair enough. Ive never used navidrome
There's also navidrome, if you only want to stream music.
I use a jellyfin server plus finamp for ios plus totally legal downloaded music that was 100% legally obtained.
+1 for Jellyfin with Finamp (or Fintunes). Also what I use and it’s fabulous.
I still buy CDs. And back then up to play in my truck. And rip them.
I still think OWNING media is a good idea. No privacy issues at all.
Most of the stuff I listen to isn't mainstream and the band are on Bandcamp. It's great being able to buy the FLAC version right away.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update
it's worth noting that the first friday of each month they usually forgo their cut so more money goes to the artists.
Do people not just download music anymore?
I'm 26, and don't know anyone, myself included, who purchases and downloads music to any significant degree. Essentially everyone I know just uses streaming platforms.
This is always surprising to me. I can understand streaming video due to their high file sizes, but audio (even FLACs) is a lot smaller in general. The only reason I use spotify sometimes is to discover new stuff.
I have my music library that I listen to, to which I add songs by getting them from youtube (it's good enough for my cheap on the go earphones). Sometimes I tune into radio stations that offer nonstop music (like stubru tijdloze).
Have you considered Funk Whale, the Spotify of the Fediverse?
Self-host your library? I don't know why that seems so hard, going by your phrasing.
If you absolutely must listen to music online (I empathise, I need to do so to find new music), here's what I do: Librewolf with Ublock Origin, Cookie Manager, Dark Reader, NoScript + music.youtube.com.
No advertisements, minimal tracking (because you will explicitly disable every other script than the one(s) required to stream music). Use a VPN and fake your user-agent/browser fingerprint for more privacy (haven't done it since I can't figure out how to do so for Firefox).
Cheers
Do you really need NoScript when you already have Ublock Origin installed? Kinda obsolete imo.
They have different purposes. I use both since I don't want to run proprietary software if I can help it, but if I do have to run it it better not have any ads.
Gives me more granular control over JS, UblockOrigin doesn't let me control individual JS elements
Yarrr harrr didgeridoo
You could get Spotify and switch it to private.
I don’t really care about other knowing what music I listen to and even use the “AI" to give me songs that I might like. Most of them are not my type but there is 1 or maybe 2 every week that are good that I’d‘ve never searched for.
Exactly, what are the privacy risks of letting someone know what type of music do you like?
@ExLisper @Nikls94 Basically predicting and modifying your behavior. Here's a paper that explains how it's done: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S235215461730044X
The article frames behavior modification as a health advancement, but whoever can alter a habit can do so both to heal and to alter your vote or discourage you from protesting, and to make you accept unacceptable living conditions. Tell me what you listen to, and I'll tell you who you are (and eventually I'll make you be who I want).
Maybe getting sold tickets to a concert?
(Which I would consider a win, because I always think about that when it’s sold out)
If you want something on Android, check out ViMusic. It uses YouTube Music as a back-end and can recommend stuff based on what you listen. It also supports offline playback. On desktop, you can use Hyperpipe. It also uses YouTube Music as its back-end.
If you want ultimate privacy, then download your favorite songs and use VLC or self host them and stream it from there.
an MP3 player like foobar2000 ...?
I download the music from YouTube (through front-end services like Piped) and play it locally through a music player.
I don't know how it works on iPhone (I have an Android phone), but I can use NewPipe and LibreTube and Seal to download the music. If I'm on the go that is. Otherwise I download the music through ytdlp and transfer the files to my smartphone.
Apple really restrict their users to their own ecosystem.
Yt-dlp is great for getting music from YouTube music.
You even get fairly good quality if you have premium (I do through Argentina, so it costs me cents per month)
I'm using Qobuz. Since it is a rather small service, I just hope it is more private than the "big players" like Spotify/Apple Music. But the main benefits of Qobuz are the audio quality and the (afaik) highest payment per streamed song for artists.
Love Qobuz. It's fucking beautiful
Beware, though.. I found that the Qobuz app sends data to google-analytics.com, app-measurement.com, mixpanel.com, crashlytics.com, and graph.facebook.com, possibly others. This is all BEFORE EVEN LAUNCHING the app. I don't consider Qobuz to be good for privacy...
Which lossless streaming service do you consider to be better for privacy? Deezer, Tidal, ...?
Classic iPod or mp3 player? Also, the “Music” app on iOS still works like iTunes. You can load albums directly from your computer, even without an Apple Music subscription. Or you could get a Walkman.
If anyone is interested, i recently developed my own system of defining my music library declaratively in the Nix programming language and started switching to it. It creates folders as playlists and can automatically download the music from YouTube or SoundCloud. I plan to expand and improve this further.
I doubt this will work on IOS tho, sorry OP.
Local with Plex and Plex amp was my best experience. It’s really well done.
Jellyfin + Finamp is usable, too.
If you don't want to go local or want a streaming service : qobuz is the less shitty of all options regarding privacy.
Setup a Koel instance at a host of your choice. Upload your music to it and stream from that. See https://koel.dev/
This looks really promising, thanks!
Have a copy of all your music and use syncthing if apple allows it that is. Otherwise get a deegoogled android running grapheneOS
Getting/syncing music isn't really a major problem for me, a decent audio player (with minimal features such as a queue and a decent UI) is what I'm trying to find.
VLC?
I feel like all the answers are so far beyond what I do. Basically VPN to Invidio.us, record with Audio Hijack, put on my phone, and play on VLC. Curious what all the elite privateers think?
Setup your own subsonic or ampache server. nextcloud has an app for that.
MP3 files that you own. They can never take them away from you, and you don't have to pay every month for them.
I self host Ampache and have Sublime Music on my desktop and Substreamer on my Android device.
For Android- Blackhole | web - beatbumb and hyperpipe
If you want a streaming service, you could try HyperPipe. It's an alternative frontend to YT Music. There's also BeatBump, but it doesn't really work.
If you wanted to go local (which I recommend), have you tried foobar2000? It's proprietary, but I trust it and it does its job very well. No ads, no data collection at all, and it plays just about every audio format you'll normally come across (apart from MIDI files). You can also customise it with skins, sync over FTP, and play internet radio streams.
First of all, I love this thread as I keep finding new stuff I've never heard about. HyperPipe is awesome and it eases my anxiety that there are still private options for music. For foobar, the iOS app is pretty snappy, though it's missing a queue feature. A feature as simple as that is kind of a deal breaker for me. Any hope that there'll be future updates to the iOS app?
AFAIK the app is still maintained. I could put a feature request in on the forums.
I built an OpenMediaVault NAS and run a JellyFin server on it.. connect with wireguard and stream music with Symfonium I've decided to download on the web.. it's a little work to get there but it's def private as long as you trust the devs. I'd also recommend vimusic for music discovery and web playing.
Gotta pirate it unfortunately. Buy it on band camp and support the artists directly, then host it yourself. Navidrone works great.
You know you can use the Apple Music app for local files right?
i believe it logs your listening history even with local files and uploads it to apple. i could be completely wrong but iirc itunes used to do this too back in the day
Guess I'll be the one to ask. Why do you want music privacy?
You assume to know what kind of information is leaking when you use these apps.
How did you come to have these proprietary information?Unless you have proof otherwise - I'm going to assume that they have access to: My location, my ip, typing speed and common spelling mistakes, IMEI identifiers , installed social media apps....
Now all it takes to make an online profile about you is just one more app or website that leaks the same kind of information
Yea of all the things to keep private, my music listening habits isn’t one of them. Tbh the algorithms give me good recommendations
The companies that aggregate data and find patterns in them can probably predict a lot about you from your music listening habits, when they correlate it with data about other people, or even about yourself. The power of profiling isn't in any specific data but in the patterns that emerge when you gather a lot of diverse data about a lot of people.
Listening habits will tell them about your routine, including where you are, when, and when you have time to listen to music (so, therefore, when you don't). If you don't ever listen to music between 8pm and 10pm, for example, it may indicate that you have children to put to bed. If you listen mostly between 12am and 5am it may indicate that you work a nightshift. If you listen between 8 and 9 and again between 5 and 6, you're probably a commuter. When you listen on a computer and when on mobile will tell them something too. And these are only the obvious patterns that I can think of off the top of my head. AI systems running on big data are designed to find patterns humans don't notice.
And of course the styles of music you listen to will be readily correlated with demographic profiles. When you feed data into AI systems designed to find patterns people can't spot, you'll find the most unlikely data reveals things about people that they'd never imagine you could know.
Given this, it's entirely possible that your music listening telemetry could eventually influence your credit score, your insurance premiums, your qualification for security clearances or your employability. You don't know where the data ends up, or with what other data it's correlated. This is why it's desirable in general to keep data private if it's not needed to provide the service.
What kind of psychopath uses Amazon music? Like I'm already appaled people would use apple music, Amazon music just seems mental....
Apple Music has very good quality, packs some value, a very beautiful and intuitive UI (if you like apple design which I do), all the features you would expect, and a large selection. I also don't get Amazon though
Of the 3 listed, Apple Music is by far the best. And yes, I’ve used all 3.
flac
If you're able and willing to self-host, I've developed a pretty great system that automates my entire process. The app I'm using on mobile is also available on iOS
I buy music from 7Digital and Bandcamp, store the files on Plex Media Server and use PlexAmp for playback on my iOS device.
Resonate is really nice. There aren't that many artists yet tho...
VLC for iOS?
It's pretty pricey but I enjoy MusicFab
Android has a fair few foss music apps.
Nicotine+ and Plexamp
DeezLoader to download via Deezer api then upload to Astiga to listen on all devices.