Unless other wise indicated, the following pages are referring to the desktop version, Google Earth Pro. The desktop version (Google Earth Pro) has been the primary version of the software used in Earth science education but that may be shifting more towards Web. Now Google Earth Pro is free, 'regular' Google Earth has moved to Web. Google Earth Pro had additional capabilities and was not free. For a number of years the desktop version is what many people knew of as 'Google Earth'.

Google has created a Google Earth Education site to provide helpful information on using Google Earth with students. Additional capabilities include movie making, as well as importing ESRI shapefiles and MapInfo tab files, measuring areas of circles and polygons, and can print and save high-resolution images.

Google Earth Pro - This current desktop version, now free to use, has many features, including displaying satellite and aerial imagery, a growing set of layers of mappable data, the ability to display third party data, tools for creating new data, and the ability to import GPS data.

Several versions of Google Earth are available for free download on Google's Google Earth Versions page. The Google Earth Pro desktop version offers numerous features that are useful in educational settings, and offers additional capabilities such as higher resolution printing and saving of images and the ability to open ESRI shapefiles. For example, creating a kml file in the browser-based version requires a work-around, this is mentioned in the User Guide section of this tutorial. While it is possible to load kml files, to search for locations, and to use the Voyager for exploring various locations, there are some limitations to Earth for Web that do not exist with the Google Earth Pro desktop version. Although the browser-based version has a certain ease of use (since it does not have to be installed as a desktop application), it does not have as many features that are helpful for educational activities. Google Earth for Web is a browser-based version and Google Earth on mobile is an app both are also free of charge. Google Earth Pro is available to download for desktop use for free.

Google also refers to Google Earth as a 'geographic browser.' Other examples of geobrowsers are NASA's World Wind, ESRI's Explorer for ArcGIS, and GeoFusions's GeoPlayer.

Geobrowsers are alternatively known as virtual globes or Earth browsers.

Google Earth is a geobrowser that accesses satellite and aerial imagery, topography, ocean bathymetry, and other geographic data over the internet to represent the Earth as a three-dimensional globe. Google Earth Pro with the Volcanoes layer visible, and tectonic plate boundary data from USGS displayed

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