Floola: A cure for iTunes poisoning.

I finally found an antidote to the bloated, overgrown, poorly designed mess that is iTunes. It’s a little freeware app called Floola that is just a few megabytes in size and requires no installation, so you can just put the application file on your iPod and run it from there. Floola has a straightforward interface: A simple table lists all of the MP3 files on your iPod, which you can sort by name, album, artist, genre, etc. You can drag and drop MP3 files to and from your hard drive just like you’ve always wanted to, or play music that’s on a Shuffle, which is something iTunes bizarrely refuses to let you do. Best of all, it doesn’t slow your computer to a crawl. Granted, Floola doesn’t have network playlist sharing like ITunes, documentation is almost nonexistent, and it’s buggy, but so far it hasn’t crashed my computer or hosed my music. I’d much rather spend my time with a slightly flaky app that gets the job done than a gigantic, overdesigned monster with identity issues and a not-so-subtle marketing agenda, so I’m ditching ITunes and going with Floola.