How to Avoid a School's Web Filter and Stream Internet Music on School Computers

I was sitting in my classroom the other day during an off period and I thought, "I wish I had some music to listen to." I hopped on the computer, attempted to load my standard internet radio - Pandora.com - and it was blocked!

That darned district web filter. I tried a few ways to skirt around it - proxy sites and whatnot - but they all seemed blocked as well. I didn't want to sit there in silence, so what was I to do?

iTunes

The Apple computer I was working on had iTunes installed. I loaded it to see if any teachers had left some music on the computer. To my surprise, there was an option in iTunes for internet radio!

Under "Library" in the Sidebar, Internet Radio should be the last option. Clicking on this opens a list of 25 different genres for you to pick from. They cover a broad spectrum - Classic Rock to Dance to Sports Radio to Talk Radio.

Many of these genres have dozens of stations to choose from. I headed straight for my favorite type of music - classic rock. iTunes listed 61 streaming radio stations to choose from.

Some of these were internet only radio stations. Youroldiesradio.com and the Grateful Dead all day long station both seemed to be internet exclusives. These stations don't have the best selection of music, and they'll probably get boring pretty quick.

There are some real radio stations listed too. WNCX from Cleveland and 97.1 from Chicago stood out as two prominent examples. These stations stream their broadcast over the internet. You'll hear their standard catalog of music, the DJs, and the advertisements - just like sitting in the car on the way to work.

When choosing a radio station, be sure to check the bitrate of the stream. Most of the stations ranged from 32 kbps to 128 kbps.

School networks are typically overworked and slow. If you're surfing the web while listening to music, a 128 kbps stream will probably cut out on you. If it does, switch to a smaller bitrate stream and you'll be fine.

RealPlayer

RealPlayer is another option. You may have to download and install it yourself. Unlike iTunes, it was probably not bundled with the computer.

In RealPlayer, go to "Music and My Library". You should see several options in the sidebar - including Radio.

In each genre, you'll find a handful of "Editor's Picks" stations. Scroll down past the advertisement and you'll find another short list of stations. At the very top of the screen, there is a link "See All [Genre] Radio Stations." Clicking on that brings up a search menu, and you can browse hundreds of stations in the selected genre.

Some of these stations are premium stations. You need to purchase a RealPlayer RadioPass in order to listen to them. However, there are many free stations to choose from and the subscription is not necessary.

Next time you're sitting in a silent classroom, boot up iTunes or RealPlayer. There's plenty of free, streaming music for you to choose from. Don't let that pesky firewall stop you from enjoying your favorite tunes.