The Macworld blog offers a few tips on doing comparison shopping between the major MP3 music stores. With Wal-Mart having recently slash prices on their online music tracks, the author recommends Safari uses create a web clip of the store's Top Albums page and use a dashboard widget to search both the iTunes and Amazon store. There are a handful of other worthy links worth checking, including feeds of iTunes deals and free tracks, but the true discount is finding music for free. Read on for a few humble suggestions on doing that.
Find your tunes on the web

Our own Adam Pash has written the book on comprehensive web searching for a free album or song across the web's many and varied sites. From music blog aggregator Hype Machine to straight-up MP3 searches with BeeMP3, if you can't find it on one of those sites, you've got a tried and true friend: A Google search that returns MP3s in open directories. Here's the string—just replace the "Album" and "Artist" and the like with your intended find:
-inurlhtm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "artist|album|track|etc"
Grab it from a friend

If your friend's just blatantly insisting that you check out this new album that's going to blow your mind, you could always just ask him to share his MP3s through a share-friendly online storage service—unless that friend bought their album off the iTunes store. You're still covered if that's the case, though. If they can bring an iPod loaded with the tracks to your crib, you can copy music from iPod to computer, no matter what model they're rocking. If there's a distance factor, try having them install and share tracks with Mojo. The software has its quirks, but it often gets the job done.
Grab the audio from a video

Bands want to see their songs promoted, so they take their show on tour, do press interviews, and, more than that, make videos for their singles. If you're looking for just such a song, why not use the audio that's already floating around for free? Free web tools like Vixy and VidToMP3 automatically grab tracks from YouTube or other video URLs. Want a bit more control over audio quality and track format? Try reader Matt's suggested method for recording YouTube music videos to MP3.
How do you save money, or search for deals, when you're actually buying MP3s? What tools do you use to check whether a song or album is available free before dropping the cash? Tell us your techniques in the comments. MP3 shopping tips [Macworld]


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