Google Earth is a boon for anyone who wanted to locate any particular place on this planet. Over the decades, it has helped students, professionals, scientists as well as hobbyists catch a bird's eye view of almost any place across the globe on their computer screens. Now, the search engine giant is planning to make things all even simpler - the company wants to offer this service for free.

According to IB Times, the Mountain View-based tech firm has actually done away with the cost for the Google Earth's pro version, which was earlier available for a $399 annual subscription. In fact, Google offered a free version of the product earlier too, but for most users that came with a limited feature-set.

In its present form, it is possible for any user to take advantage of the advanced features of Google Earth Pro, including the high-resolution satellite images, the facility of importing data sets, record the video footage of flyovers across the world, in addition to measuring distances using a variety of polygons. In addition, Google Earch pro version also offers several other features. For instance, the Google Earth Pro enables access to further data sets such as state demographics, counting population maps as well as voter turnout. It also provides the user with access to the location of Fair Trade crop producers.

In order to obtain Google Earth Pro, users will require signing up for a product key via the official website of the service and download the client.

Prior to the Google Earth's launched, the virtual globe software was called EarthViewer 3D. The software was developed by Keyhole, Inc., a tech firm funded by the CIA. In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole as well as the software was re-launched it a year later as Google Earth.

Ever since Google acquired the software, it added numerous features to Google Earth, including a flight simulator, Google Sky - which shows structural images captured by the Hubble telescope as well as various NASA satellites, and street view integration.

In fact, engineers have successfully used the Google Earth for many other applications, such as natural gas infrastructure planning, emergency planning and solar panel installations.