If you want to get to grips with world geography, Earth Browser offers a wealth of information. It displays a globe of the Earth that you can rotate and zoom in on. There are lights to show cities and areas of night and day are also displayed.

There are plenty of advanced options available for the maps including country and state borders, local times and ocean features.

You can take feeds from local webcams and even show active volcanoes and earthquakes around the world. The registered version has more detailed maps.

Note that this now requires Adobe Air.