The Bottom Line

Google Earth is an incredibly feature-rich application. Even if you’re just a casual user, you can have lots of fun zooming into specific locations, doing route fly-bys, and the like. The program’s 3D capabilities take basic mapping to a new level—and provide added functionality. And that’s not even mentioning the Flight Simulator or Google Sky, both of which are a lot of fun (and, in the case of Sky, educational!).

Bottom line? I like Google Earth a lot. I don’t use it for all my mapping needs (Google Maps is just fine for most things, to be honest), but when I want an added bit of realism, it’s the way to go. It’s certainly worth your time and money (it’s free, remember) to give it a look.

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