Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and is now led by CEO Sundar Pichai. It is the world's largest search engine and most visited website, known for its many free services including Google Search, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Chrome, Google Play, and Google Pay. While Google sites offer advantages like being free, fast, and providing cloud storage, they also have disadvantages such as limited customization and being restricted to only work with Google apps.