‘Google’ – is the new buzzword of the millennium; not just for the techies but for the ordinary non-techies too. It provides numerous functions, but the most important one that comes to our minds is the Google Search. Has it replaced many search engines like Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves and the likes? If so why?

‘Google Search’ has truly become a part of our day to day activity. It is in- fact the new mantra of our lives. You can type in anything you would like to know and there you have before yourself even hundreds of search results on the monitor, also the information of how many seconds it took for the search!

The search engine can also be used as a calculator, a dictionary and language tool, a measurement and currency converter.

Google’s homepage includes a button called “I’m feeling lucky”. After typing your required query in the text box and clicking on to this button, you would be taken directly to the first search result, bypassing the entire search engine results page. The idea is that, if a user is “feeling lucky”, the search engine will return the perfect match the first time without having to page through the search results.

Google search engine accepts query as a simple text area and then breaks up into sequences of search items, delimited by quotation marks, with a prefix “+” or “-” .

Google’s Advanced Search web form gives you additional fields to fill in for the search.

Google’s new search mechanism will improve People Search; which means that if someone searches your name on Google, your Google profile details, your blog, your Linkedln profile, your FaceBook profile etc will be disclosed.

‘Google SearchWiki’ lets you customize your Google web search results by ranking, adding and removing notes to them. Google is available in many languages.

Google Mail or GMail is the new kind of web e-mail by Google. Started off as a project by Google developer Paul Buchheit, initially it was available to only Google employees, but in February 7, 2007, it was thrown open to the public. Initially began with a free storage facility of 1GB per user, but later upgraded to 4GB per user.

Advantages of Gmail are:

• · Spam or unwanted e-mails are detected and filtered or blocked from inbox
• · Google searching within mails or sorting of mails
• · Built-in chat: text, audio and video
• · Access GMails from even your mobile phones
• · Quick contacts and keyboard short cuts can help you compose your e-mail faster
• · Good Ads at the sides giving your important information
• · Lots of storage space, you can even purchase if you would still like to increase your storage space
• · Privacy assured
• · Signing up is for free

Google Earth offers maps and satellite images. It’s a virtual globe. It was released in June 2005. You can view your city’s satellite image using Google Earth. Google also offers maps of Moon and Mars too.

There had been many controversies relating this. Ex-Indian President Mr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam Azad had expressed his concern over the images of sensitive cities and areas of the country, which can be used by terrorists. ISRO seeks to have dialogues with Google officials over this.

Google Chrome is the latest Internet browser developed by Google. It poses threat to Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Netscape with its speed and other facilities, says many.

Google Groups help you to set up your own group, invite friends to join, discuss and chat online with them.

Google Video helps you to upload your videos. It’s a free video sharing web site like YouTube.

Orkut is a social networking service developed by Google and named after Orkut Buyukkokten, a software engineer.

iGoogle helps you create a personalized home page that contains Google Search box and gadgets that assist you to:

• · View your latest Gmail messages
• · Read headlines from Google News
• · Check weather forecasts, stock quotes
• · Store bookmarks to access your favorite sites quickly
• · Design your own gadget

Google Health helps you organize all your health information in one place, safe and private. Your medical records from your doctor, pharmacy can be stored and shared with your family members and doctors, securely and privately.

Google indeed satisfies many of its customers than Yahoo.