Google inc. has done it again. Today they released
Google Desktop which basicly is a way to index and google search your desktop. I was intrigued by this idea of searching files in this manner (inside files, chat logs, email, inside documents, etc.) which is much toughted by Microsoft as a killer features of their next OS, Windows Longhorn. Sadly Longhorn is still not out yet and the search features has been delayed untill after 2006.
Now seeing google's much anticipated release of their search tool, only for windows for now, I decided to try it out. I booted into windows (breaking my awesome linux uptime record) and downloaded this small (446kb) file. After running it installs a IE plugin and I let out a groan. I have been a loyal firefox user and I did not like the idea of switching to what I consider an inferior browser. When the installation finished a small icon appears in your taskbar and launches...firefox? It turns out that google desktop has a web-based interface at localhost. The application also runs a one time indexing program, that only runs when the computer idles. I wanted to change this to get this review of google desktop out faster but their seems to be a lack of advanced options in the program. After I watched resevoir dogs for the 3rd time I came back to an indexed system.
It seems to work very well overall. it can search by keyword, date, and user of AIM chats, the outlook only support was disappointing for e-mail but hopefully they will eventually add more clients. It was able to find files in both my local and network mounted partitions. Word document searching worked, but it crashed soon after that search. I have yet to be able to replicate this so I believe it was just a very odd bug I ran into.
Another feature I found, if the desktop google program is installed, google.com has an extra tab. A "desktop" tab. This is pretty cool...
Anyone else want to share their experience thus far?