ITunes Alternatives Can Free Your IPod

Apple's iPod has a 73% share of the portable music player market. Many of those iPod owners use Apple's proprietary software iTunes to manage and transfer their digital media files to their iPod. Most iTunes users think they have no alternative, but there are a number of programs that are compatible with your iPod and most of them are smaller, run faster and are open source. Users that find iTunes bloated and inefficient have many programs to choose from.

Songbird is a full featured alternative to iTunes, and it plays AAC,FLAC, OCG and WMA. Unlike other media players, it is also a stand alone web browser based on the Mozilla platform and it has over 30 add-ons. The most popular add-on is the iPod support extension, which makes it easy to synchronize your iPod with your Songbird library. Other extensions include the iTunes Library Importer and the eMusic store add-on. Because Songbird is relatively new software, some builds are prone to crash, but a nightly build is available so you always have the most up to date software. Songbird is available for Windows, Mac and Linux and takes up less than half the disc space of iTunes.

For iPod users that have made the switch from Archos' elegant drag and drop interface, Anapod Explorer can restore the ease of use that they enjoyed with Archos. Anapod Explorer allows iPod users to transfer files to their iPod using the My Computer window. You can also transfer files from your iPod to your computer. It also offers a tag preview feature and allows users to organize files on their iPod using the familiar folder system. The program is a tiny 1 MB and starts at $19.95 for the Shuffle Edition, with the Universal Edition selling for $29.95. If you are a Windows user that can't get used to iTunes, Anapod Explorer is worth the small cost. A free trial is available.

If you are looking for a free application, Floola supports transfer of music, video and podcasts and can be loaded onto an iPod and run directly from the player without the need for installing the program on a computer. This allows the user to transfer songs from any computer to the iPod. Floola can also remove duplicates. It runs on any Windows, Mac or Linux distribution. At 4.6 MB, it is half the size of iTunes.

If iTunes has kept your iPod chained to your PC, consider one of the alternatives and set your iPod free.