Free last.fm radio for everybody everywhere: CoboltFM fixed, KLastFM updated

Update 1: CoboltFM and KLastFM are dead. Last.fm changed things for the worse and pulled the plug on free streaming for almost everyone. Believe it or not, most of the planet can't stream anymore even if they pay. Last.fm refugees can still stream custom radio stations from Grooveshark with Dood's Music Streamer.

Update 2: Liquid Bear still plays last.fm radio on Android.

The music mafia industry is a strange beast. You'd say they'd be happy with last.fm as free advertising for their artists and music, but they want money in addition to publicity.

Problem: last.fm has to get the money from subscription fees or advertising, and they only manage to get enough income from advertising in Germany, the USA, and the UK. I don't know why they don't team up with Google's advertising program instead of reinventing the wheel, but the ugly result is that you can only listen to streaming last.fm radio if you're located in one of the three lucky countries. Even if you're a paying subscriber in one of the other 200 countries the official last.fm app won't play music on your Android phone. That sucks, because music and the internet shouldn't be locked up behind borders.

The good news: there are two Android apps that fix the problem. Both are based on the alternative last.fm client aLastFM.

Update: CoboltFM and KLastFM are dead. Last.fm changed things for the worse and pulled the plug on free streaming for almost everyone. Believe it or not, most of the planet can't stream anymore even if they pay. Last.fm refugees can still stream custom radio stations from Grooveshark with Dood's Music Streamer.

KLastFM

KLastFM plays last.fm radio everywhere on the planet, no matter if you are a paying last.fm subscriber or a freeloader. The interface is ugly, scrobbling is often erratic, and if you don't use an ad blocker the banner is very annoying, but it delivers your last.fm radio fix for free.

The latest update squashes some bugs and cleans up the user interface a bit. It's still not a beauty, but it works. And if you don't like it there's CoboltFM.

• KLastFM (Opera Software)


CoboltFM

CoboltFM plays last.fm radio for free anywhere on the planet. The app is open source, it doesn't have the freezes and missed scrobbles of KLastFM, it precaches tracks so you don't have to wait so long between songs, and there's a direct link to your last.fm profile page when you hit the menu button. It doesn't have any ads either.

Old versions would often fail to load your radio stations, but so far the latest edition of CoboltFM always connects on my phone. If CoboltFM works for you it's a better app than KLastFM.

• CoboltFM (Google Play Store)

Update 1: CoboltFM and KLastFM are dead. Last.fm changed things for the worse and pulled the plug on free streaming for almost everyone. Believe it or not, most of the planet can't stream anymore even if they pay. Last.fm refugees can still stream custom radio stations from Grooveshark with Dood's Music Streamer.

Update 2: Liquid Bear still plays last.fm radio on Android.