Pandora's Box: Listen to Pandora without a web browser

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Pandora's Box: Listen to Pandora without a web browser

by Brad Linder Jan 30th 2008

We were looking for a good way to listen to listen to Pandora without the need to keep our web browser open all day, and then we remembered an article we wrote a year and a half ago about Pandora's Box. This Windows-only application lets you login to your Pandora account and access the streaming music service without firing up your web browser.

Since we originally wrote about Pandora's Box, the program has been updated several times with support for Quick Mix, a right-click letting you give songs a thumbs up or down and perform other features from the system tray and some bug fixes.

The project suffered a major setback when Pandora began blocking access outside of the US. But the developer of Pandora's Box figured out a nifty method of getting the player to work using anonymous web browser Tor. So not only is Pandora's Box a great way to listen to music without opening your web browser. You can also use the program to listen to Pandora from outside of the US.

The application's not going to win any awards for memory efficiency. At times, we found it used close to 100MB of RAM. If you're looking for a Mac solution, you might want to check out PandoraBoy.

Tags: music, pandora, pandora's-box

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Matt S. said 8:19AM on 1-31-2008

The memory usage isn't any of the many standalone players faults. Every browser, every app, everything I have ever used to listen pandora has always made that particular process use well over 100MB of ram, sometimes even 200. I asked one time and its just the flash player pandora uses. It sucks.

I tend to like PandoraBrowse myself..
http://www.ksoftware.net/pandorabrowse/

Andrew said 8:19AM on 1-31-2008

Don't know what the difference between this and Open Pandora is, sounds pretty similar to me. Open Pandora wins on looks and has the same Tor fix.

http://openpandora.googlepages.com/

kingkool68 said 10:24AM on 1-31-2008

I use Open Pandora all day at work and I absolutely love the ability to tie keyboard shortcuts to it -> http://openpandora.googlepages.com/help#1

Dave said 9:07AM on 1-31-2008

I use Mozilla Prism. I like that because I use Prism for other apps (Gmail, GCal, etc) too so I don't need to install a separate app just for Pandora.

jberger said 9:46AM on 1-31-2008

My favorite way to listen is via a sonos, they have full pandora integration and work as a standalone unit, no PC required.

flipthefrog said 1:29PM on 1-31-2008

this does NOT work outside the US. Pandora detected what country Im from immediately

Brad Linder said 1:29PM on 1-31-2008

Did you follow the instructions in the link for configuring Pandora's Box to work with Tor? Alternately, as Andrew pointed out you could try OpenPandora, which has proxy options built right into the client.

flipthefrog said 1:31PM on 1-31-2008

aha, duh. i'll see if that works, sorry

frappe987 said 3:04PM on 1-31-2008

Can any of these work with Linux, thanks.

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