Free GPS Cell Phone Trackers

There are a host of GPS cell phone tracking programs out there right now that provide a wide variety of different angles on this very cool service. The best part about these programs is that they can turn any GPS-enabled cell phone into a very powerful tracking device for free. All you need to do is download some software onto your phone and almost instantly you can have a tracking account with some company that is going to be able to help you see where you have been, notify your friends and family of your location (if you want to), and provide you with some extra lost cell phone protection in the event that you end up misplacing, losing, or having your cell phone stolen.

Before we get into all the different free GPS cell phone trackers out there we should come to some type of understanding about how cell phone tracking actually ends up working.  It all begins with the mobile phone needing a GPS. Thankfully, many people have cell phones that come with a pre-installed GPS receiver.  These phones use this GPS receiver for all sorts of things that can help make a users cell phone experience that much more enjoyable. For example, a lot of phones have some sort of navigation component these days.  Some carriers, like Verizon, have their own navigation application that they can use while others rely on third party applications from GPS companies like Garmin, TomTom, and Navigon.

GPS got into cell phone mainly because the government created a law that required cell phone companies be able to provide the location of a cell phone that had made a 9-1-1 call.  While some companies simply decided to use cell phone tower technology to trilaterate the position of the phone, other companies went with using a GPS receiver.  Either way, all phones now have GPS or GPS-like functionality.

Google Latitude is a great GPS tracking program for cell phones that works off of the ever popular Google Maps. It is billed as an excellent way for friends and family members to stay in touch with each other and to be made aware of the going-ons in their circle of friends. All you need to do to get started is have a Google Account, which almost everyone does, and first install the Google Maps application for cell phones. Once you have done that you just enable Latitude and you can begin sharing your location with people whom you choose in a matter of minutes.

This program is completely free to use and will work great on most phones. However, it is not available on the iPhone since Apple sucks.

Here is a very brief video outlining what Google Latitude does and how to get it:

BuddyWay is a GPS tracking program for cell phones and PDAs with GPS that allows users to create travel logs in real time to share with friends or to keep for posterity. This program is less social than Google Latitude, but definitely more traveler friendly. It allows you to make comments about locations in real time, tracks your travel speed, distance traveled, and time traveled. You can even download past trips from your account and easily import them into Google Earth where you can relive your trip in 3D using the Google Earth rendering engine. Boring slide shows of the past are over with this bad boy.

Completely free to download and use, this free traveler GPS cell phone tracker is great for any jet setter or frequent traveler looking for ways to improve their experience and enhance their ability to share their journeys with friends and family in real time and after the fact.

InstaMapper is a free cell phone tracking program that you can download and install on your mobile phone. Signing up for your completely free account will only take a short amount of time.  You will need to make sure that have a valid email address or you won't be able to sign up.  Once you have registered you will then be able to install the actual tracking program.  Without this program you will not be able to begin tracking.

Once it is installed and running the application will send the phone's location to InstaMapper so that they can compile it and make it available to you on the internet or via your phone.  You can get your hands on this data by logging into your account and looking at a map of your activity.  If you would like others like your friends or family to know where you are you will be able to give them your own login credentials so that they can access your account or you can create an embedded map on a webpage for them to visit and see where you are.

InstaMapper supports up to 100,000 saved locations per mobile phone and it will even organize them into your different trips for you.  Being able to save 100,000 locations will allow users to track and save several months of GPS cell phone tracking around the clock.  The is pretty cool from a free tracking program.

With all the options available to users the only question remains, which free GPS cell phone tracker are you going to use?