Google Desktop Search

[Dan Grossman]

Google Desktop Search is out: http://desktop.google.com/

Search files, e-mail, AOL conversations, Word documents, cache and more from one search box -- with Google speed and accuracy.

After waiting 1-5 minutes to search my 400,000 e-mail messages in Outlook Express for something at least twice a day, I am very excited about this. Turning a 5 minute search into a one second search is amazingly useful.

[marcel]

trying it out right now...

pretty interesting. Adds more stickyness to the Google brand.

Anyone know of a similar Open Source solution ?

[marcel]

I know we are all wondering about this so...

Privacy and Google Desktop Search



Google is commited to making search on your desktop as easy as searching the web. We recognize that privacy is an important issue, so we designed and built Google Desktop Search with respect for your privacy.

So that you can easily search your computer, the Google Desktop Search application indexes and stores versions of your files and other computer activity, such as email, chats, and web history. These versions may also be mixed with your Web search results to produce results pages for you that integrate relevant content from your computer and information from the Web. Your computer's content is not made accessible to Google or anyone else without your explicit permission.

[Hierophant]

Don't like it... If it was truly a desktop search and Google wasn't getting access to your indexes then you wouldn't have to search via their webpage. It would have an interface to search directly on your computer or give you the ability to replace Windows Search via an Explorer extension.

Not only that but it allows you to override the inbuilt security precautions of SSL and will index encrypted web pages for you. Not a good idea in my book.

Had it installed on my computer for about 2 minutes then when selecting search, it went to Google.com, I uninstalled it.

[Dan Grossman]

Wayne,

The desktop search runs as a local server. The search button brings you to a page on http://127.0.0.1:4664. The new link on Google.com to Desktop also points to this local URL. The desktop search functions 100% with no internet connection. While it uses a web browser as an interface, the webpage is local, not google.com... the index is stored locally.

1. Does Google Desktop Search share the contents of my computer with anyone?

No. Your Google Desktop index and copies are currently stored only on your computer. The content is not shared with Google or anyone else without your explicit permission.

[Hierophant]

Still not kosher with me. I didn't ask for a webserver to be installed. I was looking for a utility to search my local machine easily with an interface built to my OS's standards. I won't use their program because without them telling me what exactly it was, they have lost more of my trust, not that they had mauch to begin with.

Already un-installed it and won't let it be installed on any of my computers.

[maartenvr]

As expected...it is Fast!! I don't like it that I get results of websites I have previously visited though...

[Dan Grossman]

As expected...it is Fast!! I don't like it that I get results of websites I have previously visited though...

It's just looking at your temporary internet files, which are files on your computer that even the built in OS search would search. Right click on the Google Desktop Search icon and click preferences. You can uncheck any type of content you don't want it to index and search anymore.

[Plebius]

I couldn't install it. Apparently there is some conflict with other software I have.

[maartenvr]

Oh yes, it is doing better now. I like it. Now they got to setup that I can search files on the network....

[vgarcia]

It's not that useful to me since I don't use Outlook or IE much. Maybe when they decide to support Mozilla-based products I'll try it out.

[Dan Grossman]

It's not that useful to me since I don't use Outlook or IE much. Maybe when they decide to support Mozilla-based products I'll try it out.

It doesn't search Thunderbird mail yet, but the program works fine in Firefox... it's just a local web server, so you can use it in your browser of choice. It, in fact, asked me to close Firefox before installing, and when I visit google.com in Firefox I see the desktop search tab there as well.

[Hierophant]

It doesn't search Firefox's cache either.

[Tim_Rogovets]

The only use for me is to quiclky find one particular local html file . Sometimes a time-consuming task.

[Tim_Rogovets]

Hmmm...

I wish I could assign some local PR to my local html files

[maartenvr]

So if I install Google Desktop Search on a Windows file server, would I be able to use it from a remote computer using the Server IP address?

[Dan Grossman]

So if I install Google Desktop Search on a Windows file server, would I be able to use it from a remote computer using the Server IP address?

Try it and find out, but the program probably ignores non-local traffic. I don't want to open the ports on my router to find out.

[quenting]

1) what are the similarities with the web search ?
2) who reverse engineers it ?

[shabbirbhimani]

I couldn't install it. Apparently there is some conflict with other software I have.

Me too.

[algarve7]

BTW, did you know that Google Desktop can search and cache password protected MS Office documents?? I discovered this with some Excel 2000 files I had password protected, and their contents came up in a search!

Check this out
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/000264.html

Oh, and Firefox is a damn nice browser. I downloaded and installed version 1.0 just the other day, and it works like a dream. Tabbed Browsing... how can you live without it!?! Unlike IE you can actually delete ALL of the cache when you click clear. Is the reason it's not indexed by Google because it's encrypted? IE cache is pretty insecure I believe.

[nkisberg2000]

It's great, nice and fast!