Google, we have been using it for years since 1998 and today. I am very proud of Google it helped me find this site, with homework and learning about my PC. It has no ads which is great, it is easy to use (a monkey could use it), and it is very fast. It offers e-mail(known as Gmail, advertising, Toolbars, Images and much more I could go on but it would be spam. Anyways I love google




~Wii

Yeah, Google is really a good source of information, but what I can add that sometimes searching for information, I just make a search on Wikipedia, because it is really a good source of information too and it has good links in the bottom about that topic to other websites, so you don't really need to search google so much as you used to before, especially for me.. In addition, I noticed that when searching google with some popular tags, first websites aren't very relevant, they just have a good page rank with that word somewhere or something like that and more occasionally in the first search page you can see a link to Wikipedia, it depends on what you're searching though ;]

If it isn't on Wikipedia, why not write it there? by doing some gathering of information and similar stuff ;]

However, I noticed that even though Internet users are expanding, due to more and more people use it frequently, but problem with traffic still is a problem, due to a lot of people just browse their favourite 4-8 portals/websites or similar sites they are active on and only sometimes browses the net and I think you know what I want to say, for example I, I browse several forums/portals, Wikipedia, google, last.fm and some tutorial sites occasionally, but I remember earlier I browsed much more and these days people are stuck browsing in places like myspace, orkut and similar dating/friends sites, devian art and etc. etc. etc. clicking on photos of unknown/known people and chatting/writing with/to them and stuff

I give google a 10/10 too for their search results, yet I do not use google any more as my primary search engine. I got a bit bothered by the fact that a lot of things I do and have on the internet are property of Google (search, gmail, calendar, maps, blogspot, most ads on websites, ...) and they all link to my profile. I got a bit worried about my id and that's why I've switched to Yahoo as my main search engine and as my main route planner and I'm pleased with it, the search results are almost as good as the ones google returns and I even like the route planner more than google.maps .

What Quatrux said is right, I even do recognise myself a bit in it; I do have a few websites in my bar that I visit more than once a day and sometimes that all I visit. A few years ago -when I didn't have a social life - I visited a lot more fora, I read like 10 hardware reviews a day (I did learn a lot from those reviews and I must admit I don't feel up-to-date anymore when it comes to hardwareknowledge), I browsed a huge amount of website, those days are over .

I would have to rate Google very high, too. I have used it, and continue to use it daily. (Well, if not daily, then almost every time I get online)

I have used it for research, used it as a source for dictionary terms, spelling, I still use the image section WAY too much.... as a designer, sometimes I just have to take a few shortcuts, and it is nice to just look at the thumbnails and realize if that is what I want or need to use.

I use gmail as one of my top email accounts. At the time I signed on, I have been able to use my gmail account for more professional usage than yahoo and hotmail. I have also used it over previous school accounts. I just really liked that the account size increases, and it is SOO easy to just click and archive, and just not worry with certain emails.

So I definitely would say that Google and Gmail are a part of my everyday internet usage, and that things would take forever to get done without it.

Nice review idea!
- skedad -

Yeah I use google everyday too I have a g mail account that is replacing my hotmail account and Google tool bar, and Google earth. Plus its better then dictionary's all you do is type define: and the word it gives you meaning or you can search for posts and information on a certain site. All HAIL GOOGLE. Plus Google Checkout is awsome too they give you $10 off your first product thats sick.

This is quite untrue. Google does have ads--advertisers pay it to advertise (see the sponsored links on the side of the page?), otherwise how would Google make any money at all? It got rich off advertisements. See, let's say you search for shoes: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=s...amp;btnG=Search Look to the right side and you'll see a bunch of advertisements that say things like "Designer Shoes on Sale" and "NineWest Outlet Store". It's quite obvious these stores paid Google to be plugged in the search results for shoes.

Granted, Google has no flash ads, which is great. These text links on the side don't really bother my searching, and every once in a while when something's of interest, I feel fine clicking. With flash ads though, their annoyance just causes me to make sure I don't click regardless of whether I like their product or not.

Wikipedia's nice. It does, in any case, rank near the top for most google searches, so I don't usually tend to go to wikipedia first. (Besides, I have discovered that wikipedia search isn't so great, so sometimes it returns articles that have no relevance to what I'm searching for, while using Google usually ends up returning a relevant wikipedia article anyway. So it all plays out well in the end.) Of course, there are some articles from wikipedia that are not necessarily good--I don't tend to trust articles on controversial subject matters since they're almost always biased or lack factual information. There's usually a tag that denotes that, so when I see the tag I tend to either leave or scroll down and check out their references.

For the most part Google searches get what I want, but there's been a (recent?) change that has skewed up the results a bit for me. Gmail too--their recent change has caused it to become a lot slower. In any case, at least Gmail offers an option to switch to the older version of it in case one doesn't like the new version.

I liked Google images, and I think it's somehow improved from before. :-P I remembered when I searched for something like sticky notes: http://images.google.com/images?q=sticky+n...art=40&sa=N there used to be quite a bit of irrevelant pictures (there was a picture of a person once...made no sense whatsoever), but now it seems the first page is covered with sticky note-related pictures, which is great.

I've never been a fan of Google toolbar, mainly because I'm not a fan of a toolbar from any company. Basically the only thing I would ever use would be the search bar, but considering that Firefox already has a search box (with google as an option), there's no need for a second one. Nor is there need for a spell checker or a popup blocker, as Firefox already offers both of those. I suppose the toolbar would be a useful piece of work for IE users, but for FF users, not so much.

It's really funny how I was originally attracted to Google (in 2000, I think) by its design. Everyone calls out Google on its design, about how it's really plain, but for some reason, I was a big fan of those 'o's. Granted, I was in third grade at the time...hahaha.

Gmail is definitely nice. There's so much functionality that most of the other email services don't offer. (ie POP3 access, IMAP.) I also like how Google doesn't append ads at the end of your emails the way hotmail and yahoo do. And that they don't have huge flash advertisements every time you check your email. They have a working spam filter too, which is really a big plus--I don't think I've seen a single spam message for the last few months. Granted, there are a few false positives, but I also like how Google apparently learns when you tell them that it's not spam. That's the way a true spam filter ought to work.