Is it possible to listen to free podcasts on "itunes" without downloading and without subscribing?

Yes. Search for the podcast you want in the iTunes store, hover your mouse over the episode you want to listen to and click the play that appears at the end (just like listening to a sample in the store) and iTunes will play the whole podcast.

Thanks @Lightlyseared but it is not happening for me.

There are a few ways, how are you trying to listen? Computer? Phone? Etc?

@BhacSsylan Computer.

Hmm. Most podcasts indexed by iTunes have their own sites where they host the episodes. have you searched for them?

And I likewise don’t see that link, @Lightlyseared. Only ‘view in iTunes’, which only takes me to a link to download iTunes. But if I want to, say, listen to an episode of Idle Thumbs, i could just go to the site and stream it from there, like so.

(if I recall correctly, iTunes is only an indexing service as far as the podcasts are concerned, so they don’t host anything but links, really, so essentially any podcast they index should have it hosted somewhere else)

@BhacSsylan I did click on the image right top side of the screen and cliked between “download” and “play” and no problem there. But is that “iTune” related?

(Edit to Add) I went to NPR See what happens here
when I click on “view in iTunes”? I get this

Hmm? I don’t quite get what you mean. If you mean you clicked on either ‘download’ or ‘play’ on the Idle Thumbs website, then yes, that is ‘iTunes related’ in that that is an iTunes listed podcast, but listening to it without going through iTunes (actually even better in that case, since the iTunes page doesn’t currently have the latest episode). Not sure what you mean if you’re talking about the iTunes site.

And yeah, that’s also what I see if I attempt to go through iTunes.

As for NPR, putting simply ‘Car Talk Podcast’ into google nets this site, where you can simply download the latest episode. Sadly, no streaming that I can see, so that is an issue.

@BhacSsylan On your link, when click on “Subsctibe to itunes” and then when I click on “view on itunes” no success. It gives no indication that I have to scroll up to see:

“iTunesiTunes is the world’s easiest way to organize and add to your digital media collection.”
We are unable to find iTunes on your computer. To download and subscribe to Idle Thumbs by Idle Thumbs, get iTunes now.” Emphasis mine.

Maybe the the image should have “itunes” on or around it? I can listen to it without downloading itunes which is what I want.

I will be back to this tomorrow I have to leave right now, I appreciate it.

I’ve linked a few things, In my first link, that is the website for the podcast ‘Idle Thumbs’. This podcast is also listed on iTunes. These are the same thing, simply listed at two different locations. There are a few ways to go about getting it. The iTunes version would have you download iTunes. However, you can get the exact same thing by going to my first link (This one) and clicking on the ‘play’ symbol in the widget on the right. Or, going to the ‘episode archive’, choosing one, and then doing the same thing. These are the same content. Going to the ‘subscribe to iTunes’ is only if you have iTunes and want to use it, it’s not required to listen to the podcast at all.

iTunes is not a website, it is an application.

You have to download iTunes to your computer. That gives you access to the library and will let you use iTunes as a radio/directory/podcast center/library for free material. (It also lets you buy music, movies, eBooks, and TV shows). You don’t have to download the podcasts if you listen to them on iTunes, but you do need the iTunes program to listen to them through iTunes.

If you don’t have iTunes installed, and you don’t want to install iTunes, then search for the podcast you want using google (say, “NPR car talk podcast”). You should be able to easily find the page from the original source offering a podcast.

For the search terms I quoted above, this was the first result.

You can bookmark this site, and return to it each day (or week, or however often the show is on) for a new podcast.

Different shows on different sites are offered in different ways. Sometimes, you can only download through iTunes. Sometimes, you can stream directly from the site. Sometimes, you can download the podcast onto your computer directly from the site and play it from there. In this case, if you want to stream Car Talk, you can only do so using iTunes.

I don’t like to stream, and using iTunes is complicated for me because I keep music on an external hard drive (this is not relevant to your issue), so I usually choose to download the podcast to play later.

To do this, find the button that says “Download” or find the button that says what type of file the podcast is in. In this case, there’s a button that says “Download MP3/4.” Click on it, and Windows will ask you if you want to “Open” it or “Save” it. Click on the down arrow beside “Save” and then choose the “Save As” option – this will allow you to navigate to the desktop or wherever you like, and save the file in that location. I think that if you just click “Save”, it will go to a temporary file where it might be hard to find.

Once that is done, you can go to wherever you saved the file on your computer, and play it using whatever media player you choose. Let us know if you have trouble with this – normally these files are associated with an Apple program called Quick Time, which you might not have installed if you don’t have iTunes. But there are ways around this. Try playing it first and see if it works.

Alternatively, if you have a different browser than I do, the “Save As” option might not be as obvious. In that case, it might be necessary for you to right-click and select “Save target as” which gives the same result.

So.. huh? Did you already know this?

@BhacSsylan Two different green avatars here. If we’re lucky, @hominid will chime in, too. ;)

Wooow. My apologies. I totally scrolled up to check, too. That’s a pretty amazing fail.

And since we cleared that up, you can actually still stream those other ones via some RSS readers such as Feedly. I can give me details if you’re interested, but I did confirm you can, say, stream Car Talk without iTunes.

I thank you all! I just came on since my last post, so I will report after I use your advices.

@BhacSsylan re. scrolling up, now, as soon as you get on part that tells you you don’t have itunes is visible.

Huh? My scrolling up comment was just referring to my failure to recognize that you and @dappled_leaves were different people (sorry again >.<)

@BhacSsylan Okay I now see.

Any way it is still remains that there has been an improvement in iTunes since.