Everybody has heard of Google. Arguably one of the internet biggest and most used websites and responsible for helping everyone find what they want quickly, but did you know Google is a lot more than just a search engine.

Google was started in 1995 by two University of Stanford student, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Initially Google has been used as a Search Engine, to search for pages on the internet. But over time it has developed into so much more and below are a list of reasons and things you can do by having a FREE Google account.

Gmail

If you do not know what Gmail is you might have already sent or received an email from someone with a Gmail account without you even knowing.

Gmail is a free email solution which gives you near unlimited space, excellent security and spam protection, an email username of your choice, and can be accessed from multiple devices and computers.

Once you sign up for a Google account, your username will be amended to the start of a gmail address and you emails address will be something like username@gmail.com.

I have set my phone up so every time I create a new contact in my phone it saves it in my Google contacts, so I can email them or if I loose my phone I do not loose all my contacts.

Google Calendar

I know what your thinking, not another calendar program or app.

The beauty though of using Google Calendar is once you set it up, you can access it from multiple devices and keep it all synced together. That way if you update your calendar on your phone, when you go to your computer to access it, it would have updated there also.

Google Calendar also works very well with your Google Gmail as well.

Youtube

Ever wondered who puts up all the movies and music of videos onto Youtube?

Although there are professional and large advertising Youtube to get their messages across, the majority of Videos on Youtube are from everyday people like you and me who want to share the videos we have taken or made.

If you have a Google account all you need to do is go to Youtube and upload your video and put in some details like a Title and Description and almost immediately people all over the world can see your video.

If you are logged into your Google account and use Youtube often, it will remember the type of Videos you watch and recommend future videos for you to see. You can also subscribe to the channels of videos other people have made and you will be notified when they add another.

Picasa

My wife is the photo taker in the family and Picasa is a great free program to keep all your photos organised and easily accessible.

Picasa was invented in 2002 and can also be used to manipulate and edit your photos and organise them into albums. Although Picasa does not replace your image editor or designer like Adobe Photoshop, it does a great job for little touch ups on the run.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

You most likely have or have used Microsoft Word and Excel to make documents or work on spreadsheets.

Google have also made their very own version that can be used online totally free. The beauty of their cloud based system is when you log on to Google and type your letter in Google Docs, log off and then go to another phone, tablet, desktop or laptop and log back onto to Google all your docs will be there right where and as you left them.

This helps for people who move between devices a lot and for when multiple people in different locations want to work on the same file.