Prostopleer – What’s the Russian for free music downloads?

You know what a sure sign of success on the net is, it’s when your name isn’t just a name anymore, it becomes a verb.

And we’ve certainly had that with Spotify when it comes to listening and building up a collection of free streaming music via the web.

It’s been great and still is. But once they realised that building our music libraries while they lost millions every month was not the best business model, things changed a bit. Because now with their free accounts limited to just 10 hours a month, the Spotify music gravytrain may not have come of the rails completely but we’ve definitely lost a carriage or two over the side.

So in that case, what else can we hitch our musical caboose to?

Well, there’s always We7. Not the service it used to be with its unlimited free requests for artists and songs (although you can still have 50 specific requests a month after you register), We7 has changed to an exclusively ‘Radio’ based format. And while I think it’s probably the best at that type of service, it does spoil the goodwill rather with just a few too many adverts.

And then there’s Grooveshark, the biggest free streaming music player available from the States. All request based I’m pleased to say with lots tracks and features although unfortunately there’s still no getting away from the ads. However once you get past a big advert on the front page, for something American it’s not too bad ad wise.

But if you prefer your free music players to be just about playing the free music without the big intrusive images, I have another option for you.

It’s called Prostopleer, it’s Russian and apart from Roman Abramovich’s millions if you’re a Chelsea fan like me, it might just be the best Russian export since Vodka.

Because what you get is a very cool, very minimal but very slick streaming music service that makes it a doddle to search for your favorite songs. And should you take the few seconds necessary to register with Prostopleer you can then drag and drop them into any number of playlists you create. The quality of the music is great and while not everything is on there, I’ve found plenty of tracks that Spotify and We7 don’t have.

Mind you, that might have something to do with the way Prostopleer gets its music, since it allows its users to upload new tracks to it and for that matter download those songs as well….for free.

Now whether you do that is up to you, I’m just saying that it’s a feature over and above its entirely safe music streaming. But I did my due diligence before writing this, ok I Googled for half an hour, and I found no bad reviews for it at all, reviews I could read in English anyway. Look, I’m just trying to cover my arse here.

I will categorically tell you though that I’m using Prostopleer a lot. If you’ve previously focused on Spotify it’s a great unlimited music alternative. And don’t be put off if it displays in its native Russian when first loaded, down the bottom of the page there’s an option to quickly toggle the user friendly English version.

I still don’t know though what Prostopleer itself means, to me it sounds more like a cure for male prostate problems. What I do know is that you should definitely dip your finger in.

Go on, perform your own examination now at the Prostopleer website.