I never even heard of Virtual Earth before? Google Earth is cool

Google one was started before the Microsoft Virtual Earth one

see microsoft virtual earth official homepage

the virtual earth article at arcon5 seems to hype it up abit - ive read good and bad things about it microsoft version - but never used either enough to make my decision - and dont really wanna use them both and waste my time!

OK, Maybe it's me but I'm not seeing any sattelite views on Microsoft's version. Google Earth, however, allows you to switch from map view to satellite view, I believe or at least you can overlay roads. The download has no spyware or malware in it so it's clean. I haven't been so happy with Goolge's toolbar. Sometimes Goolge has some issues when searching for landmarks but maybe they've gotten that working better since last time I was on it. Gimme Googls Earth anyday.

MSN Virtual Earth is a web application while Google Earth is a client desktop application so they are two different things. MSN VE can be compared to Google Maps but not to Google Earth. Therefor GE has much more powerfull features than MSN VE and Google Maps one of them being the elevation feature where you can actually generate (by downloading) a 3d rised simulation of the buildings in a city and "fly" between them. You can also build/genearte/download elevation for special spots like egyptian pyramids for example. You can find all these as free downloads, along with other stuff, to use them with GE at:

http://www.googleearthhacks.com/,

which is a totally independent website from Google.


MSN VE also gives you images from sattelite if you click on the Aerial link where the map controls are.

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I know this thread is old but FYI - MS Virtual Earth actually started long before Google Earth. It was called Terraserver back in the late 90's. It was patchy and 2D only but it covered some serious geography that we used for work. GoogleEarth appeared 7 years later.