Radio in your browser, nothing installed
A radio stream is audio a browser can already open, so an ordinary tab is a complete radio.
Why there is nothing to install
A browser has a built in audio player. Point it at an address that answers with a continuous stream and it opens the connection, buffers a second or two, and starts playing. That is the entire mechanism. A station sends its programme to an encoder, the encoder puts a compressed stream on a public address, and the address answers anybody who asks. Nothing in that chain has a step called install the app.
The reason people look for one is historical. For about a decade a browser could not play audio by itself and every radio site handed you a plugin. That stopped being true a long time ago, and the habit outlived it.
Nothing loads until you press something
The player fetches no audio on page load, because a page that starts downloading a stream at a stranger is spending their data on a decision they have not made. The search index behaves the same way: a separate file, fetched the first time you touch the search box and never before.
Audio only ever begins on a press, or on resuming a station this same tab was already playing. If the browser refuses to resume without a gesture, the player says so and waits for one rather than pretending it is still playing.
The station follows you around the site
One audio element serves this entire website. Start a station on a country page and walk to a language shelf or a station page: the dock at the foot of the window hands the audio from page to page inside that tab and keeps playing. The station is written to the tab's own storage, which is cleared the moment the tab closes, so nothing is written to your machine permanently and there is no account to attach it to.
What a tab cannot do is outlive itself. A web page stops existing when you close it and its audio stops with it, which is not a shortcoming to be engineered away, it is what a page is. The Chrome door is the answer to that one thing: the player lives in the toolbar, so closing the tab, or every tab, changes nothing. Free on Chrome. World Radio Pro on Chrome is an optional one time unlock, priced on the store listing.
What a browser will not open
A tab is a complete radio, but not an unconditional one. A stream served over plain http is blocked inside a secure page, every time. HLS addresses and the .pls and .m3u playlist files some stations publish need machinery a browser does not carry by default, so neither is ever put in front of you as a curated card here. Where you have chosen such a station yourself the button still appears and the honest failure message does its job. The full set of rules is on how this directory is built.
People also ask
All answersCommon questions
- Do I need to download anything to listen to radio online?
- No. A browser can open an audio stream on its own, which is why the web player here needs no download, no account and no permission from anybody. The Chrome extension is optional and adds persistence rather than access: it is the same catalogue and the same streams.
- Does the radio keep playing if I move to another page on the site?
- Yes, within the same tab. One audio element serves the whole site and the station is handed from page to page as you move, so you can read a country page or a station page without silence. Closing the tab ends it, because a web page has nowhere to keep playing from once it is gone.
- Will it play on a phone browser?
- Yes. The web player is the same on a phone as on a desktop and it is the right answer on a phone, because there is no app to install. Bear in mind that a phone browser is stricter about starting audio without a tap, which is why nothing here ever starts on its own.
- Why do some stations refuse to play in a browser tab?
- Three reasons, in order of how often they happen. The stream is served over plain http, which a browser blocks inside a secure page. The stream is a playlist file or an HLS address rather than a plain audio stream, which needs extra machinery a tab does not have by default. Or the station has filled every listener slot it pays for and is refusing new connections.
- Does the player use my microphone, my location or my account?
- None of the three. There is no account anywhere in the web player, it asks for no permissions, and the only thing it remembers is which station you were playing, kept in the tab and thrown away when you close it. The privacy page sets out exactly what the site does collect.
- Is the browser version missing stations that the extension has?
- No. Both doors read the same catalogue and the same rules about which streams are playable. What differs is the furniture around the audio: the extension has the equalizer, the spectrum wall, saved stations and a player that outlives the tab.
You already have everything you need
Every country, every language shelf and a play button on every row, free in this tab. The Chrome door is there when you want the radio to outlive the tab.
This station would not play in your browser.