About This Book

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My intent in these pages is to reveal the inner depths and hidden features of the Googling lifestyle. Previous search engines attempted to become home bases and launching pads to the Internet by dint of overwhelming and varied content. These gigantic, customizable portals still scream with colors, facts, advertisements, stuff to read. Google’s power is all under the hood, where it counts. And quietly surrounding the astonishing Google index and its superlative search results are a host of unpromoted services that you might not be aware of. Even in the core service — the Web search engine — Google silently and without hype implements features that, when known, make daily Googling faster, more powerful, and more targeted.

People get excited when I talk to them about Google. While writing this book I discussed Google’s hidden power with veteran and beginning Googlers alike. Most people were astonished at the many brilliant Google features they didn’t know about. Getting fast stock quotes; searching through every page in thousands of mail-order catalogues; finding files on government and military sites; Googling over the phone; navigating search results without using the mouse; searching only the titles of Web pages; playing Google games at innumerable Google fan sites; plumbing the amazing Google Groups (one of the most remarkable reference resources in the world); using Google as a phone book; highlighting a word on any Web page and launching a Google search from that page; using the Google Toolbar to block pop-up ads . . . I could go on. And, in fact, I do for the next few hundred pages.

So, what is this book about? It’s about the most important online service of our time. Without conceit, I can tell you that these pages are about your virtual life, your online intelligence, and your informed citizenship in the Internet nation. Whichever translation of this book you are reading, whatever country you live in, the beneficent informational power of Google belongs as much to you as to anyone.

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