Freezer is a free, portable program that can download mp3s from some song sharing sites that such as Imeem, Deezer or jiwa.fm that use anti-leeching protection to prevent song downloading.
If you are familiar with the music sharing sites mentioned above you’re probably thinking that Freezer is very good news indeed.
This program was apparently written to prove a point; to quote their site “[it] was built as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate that whatever effort is made to prevent songs downloading, those sites are still very unsecure concerning the way musics are diffused”.
It continues …”the [proof of concept]will probably be extended to more sites, as it is based upon an inherent flaw they all have in their streaming scheme.” More notes on this program:
- How to use: you need to (1) start the program and keep it open, (2) change your browser proxy to the one specified by the program , and (3) to surf over to any of the supported sites and launch a song. A “save file” dialog will appear whenever a song is about to be played, allowing you to save (or not). More info on how to use here.
- Portable: no installation. Just unzip and run.
- Managing proxies: if changing your browser proxy manually doesn’t seem very practical, you might want to take a look at IE proxy changer or Advanced Proxy Manager (for Internet Explorer) or QuickProxy for Firefox.
- Supported sites: Imeem, Deezer, and Jiva.fm are documented; however, the instructions in the program dialog itself read “surf on your favorite HD radio site … the program will do the rest”. Not sure which other sites Freezer will work with, but I did try it with Last.FM and Pandora and it did NOT work; moreover it does not work with non-encrypted sites that do not use anti-leeching protection such as MixTurtle, Songza, etc (I guess since the program wanted top prove a point, there was no point to prove there
).
).Wish list:
- Flashing the save song dialog on screen while the song played, or adding it to a list that can be downloaded afterwards. Currently, you will not hear the song until you have selected whether or not to save it to your hard drive, which can be a problem if you are unsure whether you want to download or not.
- Adding sites such as Last.Fm and Pandora
- Incorporating some sort of automated proxy management in the program itself.
The verdict: a very nice little program; I especially like that it is a small 70K download that can be unzipped and run without installation. Switching proxies can be a bit annoying to deal with unless you are using a proxy manager that will make proxy switching quick and easy. If you want more downloading options on more sites you might want to take a look at Orbit Downloader, which will download from these sties mentioned above plus many others.
Version Tested: 1.4
Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista.
The program page no longer exists, but you can download ver.1.4 of the program here.
