WARNING: This article is not for perfectionists that reject non-free JS. Currently there is no music streaming solution without non-free JS: Libre.fm’s streaming service is currently down, and even Funkwhale won’t work with LibreJS running; Go to your local disc store for music CDs!

WARNING: If you are against music recommendation algorithm, you can now close this window: this article is not for you.

To be short: Spotify.

What? Are you not a free software advocate? If so, why will you use such a proprietary, DRM-restricted dis-service?

The answer is: I do use Spotify, but without proprietary software and digital handcuffs.

What?? Are you kidding???

I am not kidding. In detail, I use Spotify for song lists, music recommendations, and I store my playlists on Spotify. However, music itself comes from YouTube.

Sounds great!

Yes. By using YouTube for music, you avoid proprietary malware clients and digital handcuffs, while still enjoying Spotify’s music recommendation algorithm.

There are two approaches to archiving this.

The manual approach: by using Spotify web + YouTube Music web + Tune My Music

You need these things:

  1. A web browser that support playing DRM-restricted contents, but you need not to enable such option. LibreWolf or Firefox from Debian’s official repo is OK. This won’t let you stream DRM-restricted contents - this just ensures that Spotify web client won’t spit out an error that DRM is not supported and reject to show the interface, as it does on the browsers that completely forbids DRM like Tor Browser.
  2. Spotify web client and a Spotify account.
  3. YouTube Music web client and a Google account.
  4. Tune My Music to transfer playlists - it doesn’t require an account.

All you need to do is just:

  1. Sign in to Spotify and YouTube Music.
  2. Browse Spotify (Daily Mixes, Discover Weekly, etc.) and add musics you like to a “playlist.”
  3. Use Tune My Music to transfer the playlist to YouTube Music.
  4. Open YouTube Music web client and voilà!

Congratulations! That way you take advantage of Spotify’s recommendation algorithm, while leaving the proprietary spyware and digital handcuffs out.

The automated approach: by using Spotube

For smartphones, there is already an free software app that do such thing - it allows you to use your Spotify playlists and recommendations, without proprietary malware and digital handcuffs, but stream music from YouTube, and it’s Spotube .

You just sign in with your Spotify account, and stream music as you wish. Music itself is from YouTube, and without DRM.

Appendix: music download solutions

YouTube and its music is DRM-free, so feel free to download music from it using various free software YouTube clients.

I recommend NewPipe , which is a wonderful libre software YouTube client that allows you to stream and download videos and music you like. Even better, it allows you to download audio in Opus libre format!

Another great place is Lucida , which is a music download service that fetchs music from Tidal and other various platforms. The resulting music is free of DRM! Moreover, You can even download musics in lossless free formats like FLAC and WAV!

If you want to download music in bulk, this project on GitHub can be very helpful. Just give it a try!