radiosure.com
The growing demand for online streaming radio services has come at the expense of traditional radio apps. With the likes of Pandora, Live365 and Slacker Radio occupying a large portion of the market, the demand for traditional PC apps such as Radio Sure has gone down. Remember those days when we would actually install an app to listen to the online content? Well, with the rise of streaming services, nowadays, only a handful of people now resort to downloading the app on laptops or desktop computers.
What is Radio Sure?
Radio sure is an app more than an online streaming site. It's one of the most popular software when it comes to recording and listening to radio files. Not many people know about it, but by downloading this app, you can stream top-quality music from the best radio stations around the world.
This radio has many great features, like a simple interface which is easy to use. It also has a lot of radio stations, which can be sorted in more than one way - language, country, genre and title. Another great feature is that you can add or delete stations from the network.
Radio Sure - A RadioZilla alternative
Back in the days, RadioZilla was a free Windows application that allowed users to not only listen to the radio stations from around the globe but also download the songs without requiring any third-party applications. However, as time passed, RadioZilla failed to live up to its expectations and created a room for its toughest competitor - Radio Sure. On Radio Sure, there is absolutely no dearth of content as you can access 17,000+ channels with the ability to add or delete stations.
History
Radio Sure does not have a clear description of who owns it. All we know is that the software was developed in 2008 by a company called "The Best Ware Studio." The developer says that because of its cutting-edge design and easy use, Radio Sure was able to easily cut through the competition.
If you trust Radio Sure's data, then you should expect high-quality content on the first few pages of its website. As of December 2017, there were nearly 40,000 individual units in its database. However, only 20,000 of these were considered to be genuine stations - meaning they were created by the station's own creators. This leaves a lot of room for user-generated content on the rest of the website.
Why should you stream on Radio Sure?
Unlike other streaming services, Radio Sure lets you listen to it in more than one way - by using the main interface, by using the small bar, or by minimizing the taskbar. That's the advantage you get with traditional Windows apps. There are many good reasons to use Radio Sure when streaming.
Recording feature
This feature, though old-fashioned, is incredibly useful. The ability to record your favorite station is a great alternative to listening offline. Today, radio services offer offline listening as part of a premium plan - with Radio Sure, you can record content from your favorite channel. Sure, there are limitations to the number of simultaneous recordings but it's still an important feature.
Quality Feed
I tested more than two dozen radio stations and I didn't have any issues with signal cutouts or audio breakage. The testing was smooth. I liked the content I saw within the app and was able to navigate and test out different features with relative ease.
Clear interface & Easy Setup
The easiest and most appealing part about Radio Sure is that it is extremely easy to set up. You can download the app and once that's done, you can run the software and carry it on a USB stick. There are just a few buttons that help you navigate across different panels. The interface remains super clean and simple, with only a few buttons that help you navigate across different panels.
Configurable settings
You can use the options menu to crossfade between stations, show song titles in the system tray, modify output destination, avoid duplicated recordings, split recordings by track, select audio device, enable global hotkeys, and configure proxy settings.
Easy content consumption
As soon as you open the app, you?ll find radios stations immediately. You can view the stations and sort them on the basis of language, genre, title or country. You can also access the search function so you can find a piece of content directly. Add to the fact that someone thought about these innovative sorting features in 2008 - makes the whole process even more sweet.
You can add stations to your Favorites, record a song in an MP3 format and adjust the volume. Watching and utilizing these features sometimes makes me wonder that with the present approach, developers are doing a great job of dumbing down the streaming model and capabilities.
Design
Radio Sure provides users with instant access to a range of radio stations, but the website can be quite bad. I mean, the default WordPress theme from 2011/2012 doesn't have any graphical elements on it, and that's supposed to be premium? You can just visit the website and feel as if someone started the project and then stopped working. I get that it's not an online streaming network, but c'mon - it cannot be this bad.
Header
Radio Sure's header has five options: Download, Features, Stations, Forum, and Feedback. The Download and Features options have sub-categories which have dedicated inner pages.
Hero Section
While most of us expect a creative and immersive banner or slider on the homepage, Radio Sure features an Editors' review from softonic.com. This part of the website should belong before the footer! It looks completely off in the hero section and makes the entire website look even worse.
Body
Finally, some graphical elements can be seen in the body section. As you scroll down, you'll find Radio Sure's popular radio channels with nine tiny thumbnails which yet again have a poor graphic approach. You'd see such design from Apple back in 2007. As you scroll further, you'll find other content related to but not limited to Preinstalled radio stations, Radio Player, and Radio Skins.
Footer
Most of the website's content is confined to text, with only a few small icons in the footer for navigating between sections. The footer only has five options - Register, Log in, Entries Feed, Comments feed and WordPress.org.
Inner Pages
Once you enter the inner pages, you'll find a list of stations with their name, genre, country and update date. Hundreds of radio channels are updated each day. These include channels such as Hit 40 Radio, Pure FM, Variety 80s, Vinyl Days, KSDJ 90.7. The only part I like on the website is the ability to edit a station - with a proper form like structure, you can add information on the network.
Content
With over 20,000 radio stations, you can access the top stations across the web. Radio Sure gives you access to any genre and any country, so you can enjoy content from your favorite stations without compromising. The sort feature lets you choose a station you love, and there's no need to settle for anything less than the best. Whether you're into music or radio shows, Radio Sure has something for everyone.
Some of the top radio stations on the network include music, 1.FM, PureFM, ShoutedFM, Sky.FM, Serve.FM, Energy, 101.ru. Apart from channels you can choose from a wide range of genres such as Hip Hop/R&B, Pop, EDM/Dance, Rock, Country, Classics, Vinyl and Metal to name a few.
Desktop/Mobile experience
I downloaded Radio Sure on my desktop and enjoyed it. There are hundreds of quality radio stations on the app which will make you cling onto it. Again, it's the app that offers quality, not the website itself. I didn't like the website on my desktop screen and had a similar experience with the mobile site. As of the streaming experience, it was top-notch at a steady 128kbps quality.
Plans & Pricing
You can download Radio Sure for free, but if you want to use premium features, you must pay $9.99.
Suggestions I have for Radio Sure
I don't have any issues with downloading an app, but I do have a issue trusting a platform. A general user looking for an app might be dissuaded after looking at the website - which does appear spammy with little visual appeal. Thus, I'd advise the developers to work on it.
Conclusion
Since the Radio Sure program has a large database of content, it uses a fair amount of memory. The response time is decent and the streaming quality is steady. You should check it out if you're looking for a simple user-friendly Internet radio player with customization options.