Anyone who knows anything about the Internet knows about Google — at least its search engine. After all, searching through a googol — er, a few billion — Web pages is no problem for the world’s second-most popular Web site. But Google offers much more than a search engine. In fact, there’s hardly anything Google doesn’t do.

Once you have your iGoogle account, a wide array of options are made available. iGoogle, my home page for good reason, is similar to a profile page on Facebook — without the social aspect. By opening Safari, I can check my e-mail, the weather, my Facebook information, and sports scores. Google also keeps your search and Web histories, which makes searches more personalized over time. That may sound invasive, but those features can be turned off.

Then there’s Gmail, quite possibly the greatest kind of e-mail ever known to mankind. I have 2,929 e-mails in my inbox, yet I’m only 2 percent of the way to my quota. Searching through nearly 3,000 messages isn’t a problem — after all, Google is a search engine. Google Chat, used with Gmail, is as good as or better than AIM. And you don’t even have to be invited — now anyone can use Gmail.

The same cannot be said of Orkut, Google’s version of social networking. It resembles Facebook and MySpace, and looks to be as addicting as either. There’s only one catch: You have to be 18 or older to join. Facebook used to have a similar rule (which Uni students could avoid because of the .edu in their e-mail addresses), but its popularity has grown since allowing anyone to join. I’d like to give Orkut a try, but until I turn 18, or Orkut changes its terms of service, I have one less Web site on which to waste my time.

But there’s still a plethora of uses for Google. Google News gathers stories from 4,500 sources organized by immediacy and importance. Google Maps can tell you how to get from point A to point B and do a bit more as well. YouTube itself is worthy of a column. Google SketchUp, Google Books, Google Images — they’ve all helped me with schoolwork at some point. All of these features and several others can be personalized too.

So maybe I sound like a used-car saleman, trying to sell you some inferior product. But it’s hard to complain about all the things Google can do. And it's free, so I'm not selling anything. Google is an all-in-one package of pretty much anything you’d ever need online. And if that's not enough, well, you can always search for something better.