Google may well be the world’s most popular search engine, and apparently, it now accounts for more than 50% of all searches carried out online. It has become an indispensable tool for people looking for information, but in the past few years, it has also developed in a number of new ways and is becoming more and more important in our daily lives.

The unique corporate culture at Google recognizes that its talented staff are able to contribute to the company beyond their actual job, Google gives staff 20% of their time to spend on personal projects to benefit he company as a whole, and this has led to Google having accidentally developed a whole host of great tools that users can take advantage of free of charge.

Perhaps the best known Google tool is their Gmail free email service, which gives users more the 2GB of free storage, and allows for email to be sorted and searched using the same technology that underpins the search engine. The email service has been upgraded recently, and now fits in seamlessly with an instant messenger that is compatible with both MSN and Yahoo IM.

Google News allows you to get hold of stories that interest you from around the world. You can set a standard query and Google News will then deliver stories that match your requirements directly to you, so whether you are interested in technology or politics, you can get stories as soon as they happen.

Google have also bought a number of other companies to acquire their technology, and one of the most useful for users was Writely, who offered an online word processor. This has now been branded as Google Docs, and offers you the chance to save your documents online and edit them through your browser.