Posted by jan kowalski on 11/27/06 13:05

What is the closest WinXP freeware alternative to iTunes that:
- Doesn't delete songs periodically (like iTunes seems to do)
- Doesn't phone home (I have no need for Internet songs)
- Allows songs to go directly into an existing iPod playlist

I've learned to hate iTunes with a passion. Not only does it install
crapware (like QuickTime) on my system in forced locations (iTunes gives
you no option to put Quicktime where you want to put it) - and not only
does it constantly phone home (thankfully all iTunes requests are blocked
by my firewall) - but worse than that - recently I lost all the songs out
of my iPod nano because of iTunes. I hate iTunes!

It seems to me iTunes is highly unreliable in my use model.

Long ago (probably a few months) I had loaded about fifty songs into the
iPod nano and then played those fifty over and over again happily.
Recently, I wanted to add a few songs. I "synchronized" with iTunes and all
my songs were deleted!

Why did iTunes delete all my songs from my iPod nano?

In looking back as to why all my songs were deleted from the iPod, I can
only surmise that the original library was long moved and modified. Also,
the operating system was rebuilt in the meantime so I had to reinstall
iTunes 7. But none of that should have made iTunes destroy all my songs.
This is why I hate iTunes.

In looking for an alternative, I found the SharePod freeware iTunes
alternative replacement which seems to at least preserve my songs over
time. But, SharePod doesn't seem to allow copying of songs into a playlist.
You can copy the songs into the main song list and then move to a playlist,
but, I can't seem to copy directly into the playlist (at least iTunes
allowed that simple function). So, SharePod fails on that simple use model.

What is the closest freeware alternative to iTunes that:
- Doesn't delete songs periodically (like iTunes seems to do)
- Doesn't phone home (I have no need for Internet songs)
- Allows songs to go directly into an existing iPod playlist

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