[DeltaMac]

If you turn on the 'Street View' layer in Google Earth, then double-click on any of the cameras. You can do what you want - go right down on the street, and look around. It will vary in quality, but you will normally get very good images of buildings, signs, cars, etc. Recognizable faces are usually 'fuzzed' out for privacy. Many countries do not have any of that, but check Australia, and some areas of Europe, and many parts of the US, of course.
Nothing about Google Earth is 100% coverage, or full quality everywhere you look. The views are never real-time. Some of the views are 6 or 8 years old. Others are very recent. You will usually see an approximate date for that particular view along the bottom of the main window.

Google maps satellite images are identical to Google Earth images. Google Earth gives you much more flexibility in viewing those images, such as tilting, or easily zooming (use a mouse with a scroll wheel, or Intel laptops with scrolling on the trackpad), press the various keyboard modifier keys to change what the scroll wheel/ball does.

If the image begins to zoom too far, in or out, simply click once on the image, and the zooming will stop at that point.