Common opinion more or less states that passwords aren’t so much “necessary,” as they are a “necessary evil.” The best practices that are recommended to maintain the efficacy of passwords today can certainly feel excessive - which tempts many users into ignoring these practices, to the detriment of their security. Fortunately, many large companies - like Google - are trying to make passwords easier to manage.

Google’s offering is much greater than that of a simple search engine. It is hard to even imagine a time when the extent of the services offered by Alphabet, Inc. were just the search functionality that introduced a new verb into the public lexicon. Now, the applications that make up what is known as the G Suite are used by businesses everywhere. Here, we’ll go over some of the included features, and how your business can benefit from them.

It’s no secret how useful the Google Chrome browser is to a user. What is a secret, however, is that Chrome has some added capabilities that make it even more useful than first impressions would suggest. For our Tip of the Week, we’ll review some of these capabilities so you can implement them into your daily workflows.

Your Google account is one of your most important assets, regardless of whether you’re a business professional or a casual user. The tricky part of using Google, however, is to make sure that you’re using this asset safely. By securing your account and valuing your Google account credentials, you can make sure your account stays safe.

Google Maps is a neat service that helps users navigate during their travels, but more upgrades are being released all the time to augment their experiences. Some of the most recent updates have provided additional functionality that can provide users with even more ways to use Google Maps--particularly in regard to actually making it to their destination on time and in style.

It can be easy to dismiss the simple Chromebook as a limited solution, a one-trick pony of technology. However, while this may have once been true of the devices, more recent models are capable of much more than their predecessors. We’ll address a few misconceptions people have about, and against, Chromebooks.

Chromebooks are becoming more and more popular with the general technology user, and for good reason. They have features that make them quite desirable for a lot of people, but also due to these features, they aren’t for everyone. This week’s Tech Term is the Chromebook, so let’s take a closer look at what they are and what they do.

Google Drive lets its users take advantage of a lot of great tools and utilities, and this is only augmented by Google Chrome’s extensions. With these tools at your disposal, you can optimize the way your company takes advantage of Google Drive. Here are some of the best extensions out there that let you utilize Google Drive’s best assets to your advantage.

By default, folders in Google Drive display as a muted gray color. Unfortunately, this simplistic choice can make certain folders difficult to find in a sea of gray. For this week’s tip, we’ll go through how to change the color that a folder displays in Google Drive.

Google’s Android line of smart devices have made their presence well-known in the business world. Google now offers a zero-touch enterprise solution for its Pixel-line mobile devices. The primary reason for this is that mobile devices are somewhat time-consuming to set up, especially on the business level. You can save time by pre-configuring these devices for your business to use using Pixel’s zero-touch solution.

Users can expect a change to how Google delivers results going forward, as the search engine has killed off its ‘Instant’ feature. This feature--introduced in 2010--influenced how results were displayed, and when.

The Internet is prone to change. We all know this and have experienced it firsthand. Even though we may understand this reality, it can still be rather shocking when we’re confronted with it. The latest statistics show us how the current changes of the Internet have huge implications about how we’ll all interact with the web moving forward, which may spell doom for doing “online business as usual.”

In the wake of a dangerous zero-day vulnerability found in Adobe Flash, which required that users either uninstall it or update to the latest version, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the web needs to find a new way to support rich media integration. Now, Google plans on slowly phasing out Flash in its web browser, Google Chrome, and switch to HTML5 as the default rich media player.

Does your organization use Google Apps for Business? It’s likely you use Google Contacts to store contacts. It’s an ideal tool for business professionals who are constantly on the move, but the real value that it presents is its instantaneous access to work contacts through Android devices. For this week’s tip, we’ll walk you through how to import and export your Google Contacts to a different Google, Outlook, or Apple account.

Google is no stranger to voice-related technology. Android smartphones have long had voice-to-text capabilities. Google Now allows users to search the Internet, set alarms, add calendar entries, activate entertainment, and so much more, all with your voice. Now, you can add editing and writing documents in Google Docs to that list.

Google is much more than just a collection of desktop apps, a search engine, and a web browser. Google is a large company that’s continuously innovating with new and exciting technologies. One of these is Google Wallet, which allows for sharing cash and making money transfers online. What many users of Google Wallet forget is that, just like a debit or credit card, your Google Wallet card number can be stolen and used for fraudulent activity.

It’s been over a year and a half since Microsoft gave up support on its extremely popular operating system, Windows XP. Without the necessary patches and security updates, Windows XP becomes a hazardous system to run for average users and business professionals. Now, things are about to get worse as Google cuts support for its popular web browser, Google Chrome, for Windows XP and several other older operating systems.

If your business uses Gmail as its preferred email client, then you know that it’s a great way to keep communications running smoothly. Sometimes, however, a message might fall through the cracks, and you’ll need to locate it in order to acquire certain information. Gmail has made it easy to locate lost messages with their search feature.