Google Pack Review: Should You Get It?

The short answer is Yes! As long as you have enough room on your drive this is a little gift box with a lot of cool goodies for free.

You can choose to install just the ones you want. And unistalling any you don’tlike is very easy as the download comes with a Google Updater panel, which allows you to uninstall at anytime or upgrade when each progam is updated.

Here is what you get:

Program	Description	Install Size
Ad-Aware SE Personal	Antispyware utility – version 1.6.0.0	4.4 MB

Adobe Reader	PDF reader – version 8.0.0.456	65.2 MB

Google Desktop	Desktop companion – version 5.0.701.30540	9.3 MB

Google Earth	3D Earth browser – version 4.0.2740.0	30.3 MB

Google Pack Screensaver	Photo screensaver – version 1.0.0.1	1.1 MB

Google Toolbar for IE	Search toolbar – version 4.0.1601.4978	2.2 MB

Mozilla Firefox	Web browser – version 2.0.0.1	21.1 MB

Norton Internet Security 2006	Antivirus utility – version 9.1.0.33	251.7 MB

Picasa	Photo organizer – version 2.6.35.92 35.97	291.2 MB

Here is a review of each component of the Google Pack:

Ad Aware – very good anti-spy software that I actually have been using for the last nine months.

Adobe Reader 8 – an update to Reader with new functionality such as the ability to create your own PDF’s online!

Google Desktop – search your entire computer using the power of google search. This program is very useful. If you choose, Google will pull web clips from sites that you visit frequently! No bookmarking or remembering to check out your favorite sites. The info is right there. And you can add as many or little additional useful features that you like like Scratchpad, Weather, News, What’s Hot, and more.

Google Earth – this is a really neat tool that allows you to start from outer space looking at the earth and zoom in very quickly to any place you’d like to see. You can add borders and roads and much more to these actual photographs. Talk about geography lessons for you and your kids!

Google Pack Screensaver – a new screensaver that makes a growing collage of all your pictures. Fun for sure.

Google Toolbar for IE – if you use any of Google services this is very helpful being able to jump right to gmail or the Google Reader. Also handy is being able to search on Google without having to switch to their site.

Mozilla Firefox – so far I really like this browser. I don’t know why for so long I thought I had to stay with IE. Crazy thinking. That’s shows how strong habits can be. I know a lot of techy people prefer Firefox, so it must be good. What I like is the Tabs so I don’t have to keep opening new windows. It imports all your bookmarks and preferences from IE so everything you need is there. No crashing problems like I often have with IE.

Norton Internet Security 2005 – I use Norton already, but for those who don’t already have this, how can you go wrong with this freebie?

Picassa – oo la la, Picassa! That’s what I say. I have my pictures already very organized, but let me tell you this program is great. It loads ALL your pictures (and videos too) into one place, even stuff you didn’t know you had on your computer! It organizes them by date they were taken. And the great thing is there’s no awkward opening widows, then opening an editor, then going back to your folders. Forget those clumsy ways! Now you stay within one program and can do everything including make new albums, print, and set up collages. Really fun!

So the short answer is Yes you should get the free Google Pack. The long answer is pick the components you like best or have space for on your hard drive. There is a link here on my left sidebar to get this Free Google Pack.

What do you think of Google Pack?