Desktop Search
December 2004
Google's release (14 October 2004) of its new Desktop Search service made an already hot topic in the search community even hotter!
What is Desktop Search? Ever tried finding that KEY Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or Powerpoint presentation on YOUR own hard drive, and come up empty?! Who hasn't?!
How about trying to search for a specific email by using a single name or phrase? Impossible? Not any more!
Google Desktop Search allows you to search your PC hard drive as easily, efficiently and as quickly as you currently search the Web. What these search engines really "search" is a database index compiled by having their search engine "spiders" crawl millions/billions of Web pages on a regular basis. And that's the same concept that's used in Desktop Search - a spider crawls specific types of content on YOUR PC's hard drive, creates a "database" of that content, indexes that database, and then returns links to content based on the searches you perform.
Google's release of Desktop Search also marks the REAL beginning of the long anticipated search war between Google, the king of Web search, and Microsoft, the king of everything else!
For over a year, Microsoft has been dropping broad hints about the "integrated" (Web and desktop) search environment its new operating system, code named "Longhorn", would offer users. Then, less than a year ago, it became evident that Microsoft would a) not be able to deliver this all-encompassing operating system with all of its features, including desktop search, on time, and b) made it clear that it was going to offer its own crawler-based search technology via its MSN Web portal in direct competition with Google in order to grab a significant share of the sponsored search ad revenue that's shown explosive growth over the last 18 months.
Well Google has just trumped Microsoft with its release (14 October 2004) of Google Desktop Search (Beta Edition). Google has taken its incredibly relevant search results magic, applied it to YOUR hard drive, and fully integrated it with its already wildly popular Web search service. And it's all Free! And it beat Microsoft at its own game!
Google Desktop Search
Here's what Google tells potential users about its desktop search service:
"Google Desktop Search is how our brains would work if we had photographic memories. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, computer files, chats, and the web pages you've viewed. By making your computer searchable, Google Desktop Search puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails, and bookmarks.
After downloading Google Desktop Search, you can search your personal items as easily as you search the Internet using Google. Unlike traditional computer search software that updates once a day, Google Desktop Search updates continually for most file types, so that when you receive a new email in Outlook, for example, you can search for it within seconds. The index of searchable information created by Desktop Search is stored on your own computer.
In addition to basic search, Google Desktop Search introduces new ways to access relevant and timely information. When you view a web page in Internet Explorer, Google Desktop Search "caches" or stores its content so that you can later look at that same version of the page, even if its live content has changed or you're offline. Google Desktop Search organizes email search results into conversations, so that all email messages in the same thread are grouped into a single search result."
Click on this link to review the Google Desktop Search FAQ:
Other major and second tier search engines are supposedly working feverishly to offer their users the same capability, so Desktop Search is only going to get bigger!
Downloads:
Google Desktop Search http://desktop.google.com/
Yahoo Desktop Search http://desktop.yahoo.com/
