Google's 18th Birthday Celebration: How It Changed The Internet [VIDEO]

Google is legal! The popular search engine recently celebrated its 18th birthday. Here is a look at how Google's impact on the Internet.

Google started off as a very humble company, with its two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, rummaging through discarded microprocessors in order to get parts for the search engine's servers.  Established during the days when the internet was slowly gaining popularity, Google has become a household name.

The tech giant, which operates under the Alphabet umbrella today, has notably changed the internet, and even the world. The company's flagship service, its search function, has become so widely used, it has become a verb in the English language.

The firm's extremely quick search results were noted by researchers to have changed the way people think. A TIME article published about Google's effects on the human brain stated that people these days are actually worse at remembering things, thanks to the constant presence of information that can simply be Googled in a moment.

While Gmail might be one of the most understated services of the company, it has actually played a huge part in the evolution of the internet. Established during a time when email storage was at a premium, Google's Gmail was the first service which began to explore bottomless inboxes. Now, such features are a given for email providers, as stated by the Telegraph.

Collaboration is also something that Google has fostered over the years, with the company's slew of apps like Google Docs and Google Sheets becoming the platform of choice for enterprises worldwide. With documents automatically saved and capable of fostering collaboration regardless of distance, Google's office apps have changed the way spreadsheets and documents are shared and created.

There's also Google Maps and Google Earth, services which were revolutionary when they were introduced. Now, practically everyone has used Google Maps to get to their destination, or wasted hours upon hours visiting places through Google Earth.

Perhaps Google's most prominent contribution in recent years, however, would be the Android operating system. Had the company released the mobile operating system's source code for a fee, Google could have easily made billions in revenue. Instead, the company opted to offer the source code for free, essentially ushering in the smartphone revolution.