Google Earth Pro, the full-featured version of Google Earth, is now free for any virtual traveler to download and explore. The service, which previously cost a hefty $399, brings with it a host of advanced features that aren’t available to the standard version.
While using the same imagery as the free version of Google Earth, Pro allows users to print premium high resolution photos instead of screen resolution images. And while the free version of Google Earth requires you to manually geo-locate geographic information system images, Google Earth Pro helps you automatically find them. Moreover, the free version of Google Earth only allows you to import image files that are up to a max texture size, but Google Earth Pro offers Super Image Overlays that are more than the max texture size.
Google Earth Pro offers additional tools designed for business users like the ability to create animation movies and an option to set up measuring areas of polygons or circles. Google Earth Pro also lets you map multiple points at once and lets you access demographic, graphic and traffic data layers.
To use Google Earth Pro for free, you’ll first need to sign up for a license and make sure your PC or Mac meets the minimum system requirements needed to run the program. Windows computers should be running XP or higher, and have at least 500MB of free storage and 512MB of RAM. Macs, on the other hand, have to run OS 10.6 or higher, along with the same storage and memory requirements.
If you spent the past decade paying $399 for the Pro version, this news is probably annoying for you, but other than that, it is a great move by Google, although we don’t know the reason behind this sudden largesse.
