Free is just about the best deal for anything, and Google gives me a lot. If the only reason you go to Google is to search your way through the Internet, you’re missing out. Google offers dozens of services for the average surfer, and even more for the genuine geeks.
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You can get free email with more storage than you should ever use from a lot of companies, but Google doesn’t stop there. The feature that I really love is using Gmail for my own domain. Google Apps hosts my personal email domain with all of the same bells and whistles of Gmail. On top of that, I can dole out up to 50 individual email accounts on my domain before Google charges me for the service.
TIP: Use https to bookmark your Gmail account to ensure a secure connection. The default is http, and your email will be passed from their server to your browser unencrypted unless you use https.
Google Reader
I enjoy reading the paper, blogs, magazines, and a lot of things that I don’t even have time to digest. Google Reader uses RSS to bring all of the Internet I want to consume to directly my browser. I used to subscribe to email updates from various sites, but RSS replaces that. My email inbox is for direct communication to me, and Google Reader is for my mass media.
Privacy
I’ve put a lot of trust in Google. A recent lawsuit judgement required Google to release user activity to Viacom. Viacom expected to receive user activity as well as user names and IP addresses. Google stood up for the privacy rights of all Internet users by only sharing activity data that cannot be traced to an individual.
This action represents a small victory for privacy that will certainly be tested again. I have no faith in the government or telephone companies to proetct my privacy, so it is great to see Google take a position. With presidential candidates who know little about the Internet, it is critical that individuals have powerful and knowledgeable privacy advocates.
Everything Else
iGoogle is my home page; it’s customized just the way I want it. I used Picasa to clean up the chaos of digital photos on my hard drive, and still use it to share my pictures (I use Flickr, too). Google Calendar has come in handy setting up a site for my father. I use Google toolbar and chat. I travel by Google Maps and love Google Earth. I follow Google Hot Trends by RSS. I’ve tried sites, docs, pages, blogger, desktop search, and several other tools that are also good, but they’re not quite right for me today.
