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 ;)

  • Xirup@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 years ago

    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.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      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.

          • Zorque@kbin.social
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            2 years ago

            Well, considering the community this discussion is in…

            And, respectfully, the average person doesn’t seem to give much of a fuck about anything other their own base desires most of the time.

            • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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              2 years ago

              Sure. But the question you asked was “Do people not just download music anymore?”, and the answer to that question, which you seemed unaware of, is “Not really, no”.

              Do enjoy your highly refined and elevated desires, O noble one.

      • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        Part of my job is traveling by air, so I got a $30ish sandisc mp3 player with a 200+gb sd card. I have a bunch of music and sometimes podcasts on there. Saves my phone battery, has zero ads, and as a bonus it has fm radio for surfing the stations below as they fade in and out every minute or so.

        • mishimaenjoyer@kbin.social
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          2 years ago

          to be fair, to buy albums off sites like bandcamp, cutting out greedy multinational media conglomerates and give the money to the ppl actually working on it (yeah, i know, fees, welcome to distribution) and getting basically every (losslees/hr) codec in return for “name your price”-conditions makes it questionable to pirate some indie album to save like three bucks.

      • Juno@beehaw.org
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        2 years ago

        Wow, they got your generation good. I’m over here listening to flac files and mp3s I ripped in 2003.

    • shotgun_crab@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      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.

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      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).

  • guyrocket@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • StewartGilligan@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    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

    • amateur@toast.ooo
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      2 years ago

      Do you really need NoScript when you already have Ublock Origin installed? Kinda obsolete imo.

      • chayleaf@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        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.

  • Cowremix@artemis.camp
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • Nikls94@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    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.

      • Nikls94@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Maybe getting sold tickets to a concert?

        (Which I would consider a win, because I always think about that when it’s sold out)

      • piromantik@hispagatos.space
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        2 years ago

        @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).

        • ExLisper@linux.community
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          2 years ago

          This article pretty much says that listening to relaxing music can help you with stress levels. Saying that spotify can use the same mechanism to make you vote for Trump by slightly changing what songs are in your ‘daily mix’ playlist is a bit of a stretch.

  • quantenzitrone@feddit.de
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    2 years ago

    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.

    https://codeberg.org/quantenzitrone/declarative-music.nix

  • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
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    2 years ago

    Have a copy of all your music and use syncthing if apple allows it that is. Otherwise get a deegoogled android running grapheneOS

    • The Alchemist@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 years ago

      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.

      • ForestOrca@kbin.social
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        2 years ago

        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?

          • ForestOrca@kbin.social
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            2 years ago

            Right, if dl’able then no need to record. I was trying to list my method in the most general sense.

            • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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              2 years ago

              You’re right. I assumed trust in the instance, but should never assume that. Of course, by using a vpn, you’re assuming it is trustworthy. I guess you gotta trust someone somewhere, at least enough to hop to the next stone.

              • nus@mstdn.social
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                2 years ago

                @01189998819991197253 To be online, you totally do. :undefined: Adding extra layers helps a little bit I think… after all, the VPN can’t see exactly what video you’re looking at, and then the Invidious instance can’t see where you’re really located…

                • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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                  2 years ago

                  I agree 100%. The VPN, though, can see what address you’re visiting, and the address is unique to the video. That’s where the trust in the VPN comes into play. With the VPN, invidio.us can’t see your location, and with invidio.us, YouTube doesn’t know who you are. So many layers! I love it!