iTunes quickly became the major player in the music industry as it made buying music easy. Instead of walking into town and purchasing a CD, or even ordering from an online store, you simply select the album, click purchase and it’s downloaded to your computer. What possibly could be better or easier than this system?

What if we told you there was a way of listening and streaming the same tracks, for free, without moving away from your computer? If you have a fast broadband account, streaming high-quality audio from the Internet is a distinct possibility. Streaming high-quality video is another matter entirely.

Spotify enables you to setup a free account, download the player to your system, then select the tracks you want to hear. You can setup a play queue with your favourite tracks, so you don’t have to individually select a track every time you want to hear some music. You can listen to online Internet-based radio, too, through your Spotify player.

With support for Apple's Airplay, Chromecast and other wireless streaming support, connecting to a speaker or a pair of headphones has never been easier with Spotify. You can also follow friends, see their playlists and recommendations, get an overview of the latest releases, find podcasts and so much more. recommended.

As you can imagine, there’s a Premium option, too. At $9.99/£9.99 you don’t get any adverts in your Spotify player, far higher quality audio (320Kbps) and various member-only exclusives.