While searching online for free police scanners, it is better to be safe than sorry. Some sites try to get you to download their task bar or ad ware, spy ware, and so on which can virtually freeze up your machine calling for costly clean up and repairs. There are some safe, easy and good quality free sites that stream police frequencies. It is a matter of experience and a little common sense.
By searching through web engines such as webcrawler.com and ask.com there is a great diversity of information but not all of it free or even simple. Searching through each choice or site can be tedious. Best bet, try online internet radio/music or broadcast stations. Some offer other types of frequencies such as talk shows or police scanners.
Simply by using key words to search, you can cut down the choices or chafe to go through. Try “free online police scanner” or ” stream live police frequency free”. Many decent sites will show up and it is really just a matter at that point of looking through them. To help out a bit, here are several tried and true sites that have both quality AND are free:
www.broadcastify.com: Select the region, the state and county. Several easy options to choose from. There is also a control bar that you can use to “pause” transmission.
www.dxzone.com: Listed either by large metropolitan area or then alphabetical by city.
www.police-scanner.info: Flashy, big graphics but easy to navigate.
www.livepolicescan.com: Might have to was through some ads but fairly simple and to the point.
www.tunein.com: Internet radio that plays everything from radio, to shows, talk radio and of course, scanners. All free
These sites are easy to find and even easier to use. Sometimes, there might be an ad or two but those are no problem to avoid. A little effort pays off big, so do some research and experimentation. There are site you can go to that will give you step by step directions such as onlinepolicescanner.org or livepolicescanner.net. Both are great sites but it can be just as easy to go directly to the streaming site and walk through the process.
Lastly, don’t worry about hiding or being sneaky about listening to online police or emergency personnel frequencies. It is perfectly legal as long as it isn’t on a cell phone or telephone land line, which might explain why recently some police have taken to the use of cell phones. Either way, good luck and enjoy.