Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Launches Desktop Search Tool

Posted by michael on from the finding-it-with-both-hands-and-a-flashlight dept.

hanky writes "Google brings search to your very desktop with Google Desktop, a mini Google index of your own. Search your filesystem, Outlook or Outlook Express inbox, AIM instant message transcripts, and Internet Explorer cache. There's a full introduction to the Google Desktop over at the O'Reilly Network. It's Windows-only, but still cool enough for this Mac guy to find it intriguing."

39 of 715 comments (clear)

  1. The horns of a dilemma... by Control+Group · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Oh, the indecision!

    Being able to google my machine would be the best thing this side of perpetual motion.

    Having to start doing everything with AIM, IE, Outlook and MS-Office would be the worst thing this side of the universal solvent.

    Why, oh why, did they have to specifically aim this at all the apps I don't use?

    --

    Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
    1. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 3, Interesting
      When I ran the installer, it told me it was going to close Firefox. I assume that means it integrates with Firefox too.

      Can't help you if you're using OS X though...

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    2. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by DigitumDei · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You know, now 90% of my mail is done through GMail. All my searching on the internet is done through Google. Now all my searching my PC will be done by Google.

      They might as well just write a bloody all-in-one operating system and get it over with. :P

      Seriously, I'd love to see them make a linux distro. Maybe it'd suck, but with their track record I'm betting it wouldn't.

      --
      East Coast Brewers
    3. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by Mattintosh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Heh... there are about 4 or 5 replies from Apple newbies down here.

      I suppose you're all too cool to have ever used MacOS 8.5 - 9.2, which came complete with FindByContent and the FBCIndexingScheduler for use with Sherlock 1.0 (back when it was an Oooh! Wow! feature, circa 1998).

      If you ever mount a Windows partition on MacOS, it will still to this day put .DS_Store (DAVE Sharing folder preferences storage, even though OSX uses its own SMB/CIFS, they still go by Thursby's filename), TheVolumeSettingsFolder (duh), and TheFBCLockFolder (FindByContent index) on your drive. Even MacOS X does this.

      I'm away from my Mac right now, but I'm a bit surprised it doesn't still have FBC.

    4. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by Thomas+Miconi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They might as well just write a bloody all-in-one operating system and get it over with. :P

      Man, with what they have now, if they just set up some kind of browser-based productivity /office tools (based on e.g. Echo or summat) then for all practical purposes they will have made the first true multi-platform OS ever !

      The underlying OS (win, linux, whatever) will just act as a kind of bloated BIOS. The browser being somewhat equivalent to the windowing system.

      Where do I sign up ?

      Thomas-

    5. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And I thought people here don't like monopolies...

    6. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by bogie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "we may consider adding increased Firefox support in a future version of Desktop Search."

      Lame. That's not reassuring at all. I would be a lot happier if they said we WILL be adding increased Firefox support in the future. Yes I understand the econmics of it and that marketshare had a lot to do with it. But considering that its the advanced users who pimped Google and helped really spread the word about it they could have thrown us a bone.

      --
      If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    7. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by tanguyr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Overall, i'd have to give it a 9 out of a possible 10, and i'm in much the same case as you are (all the good stuff not on C:\, incompatible browser software, etc.). The reason i'm giving it such a high score is that this software targets the "average" user and does a completely brilliant job of it. A 400k download followed by (this is the kicker) a question-free installation and it "just works". Software a son could love, but a mother could install.

      The inmates have been evicted, someone else is running this asylum.

      --
      #!/usr/bin/english
    8. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Why, oh why, did they have to specifically aim this at all the apps I don't use?

      For that matter, why does it want 500MB of disk space? Either it's going to try to index every word in every file or it's got a really inefficient storage method. Come to think of it, probably both.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    9. Re:The horns of a dilemma... by ahrenritter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unless the son made the mistake of recently switching his mother over to Firefox and Thunderbird when she *really* could have used Google Desktop Search. :( I hope they support Mozilla soon.

      --

      All I wanted was a rock to wind a piece of string around, and I ended up with the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
  2. Testing. by loconet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So far in my testing, it has performed better than MS's own indexing service which comes with Windows.

    --
    [alk]
    1. Re:Testing. by loconet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sure, I am simply able to find the relevant files faster. Not only is it faster (probably because it searches less files) but I'm able to quickly spot the file I want by looking at the text previews - something which Window's search tool does not have.

      --
      [alk]
    2. Re:Testing. by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      IE caches files in all kinds of weird places in the filesystem that it never cleans out. These files are not visible from explorer or the command line. There was some outrage about it a few years ago. Google might be using these undeleted caches, rather than the official IE cache.

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    3. Re:Testing. by yerfatma · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, I wanna know if it indexes mapped drives. Because if it does, it's indexing a bunch of development servers for me as we speak. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

  3. Spotlight? by LanMan04 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder how similar this is to the new "Spotlight" feature to be included in Apple's OS 10.4 "Tiger".

    --
    With the first link, the chain is forged.
  4. I've installed this by bigman2003 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This works fantastic. I'm impressed with the speed, and accuracy of the searches.

    Already two Mac people in my office are fairly jealous, because this is what they thought Sherlock would be- but wasn't.

    I don't think this will make anyone change platforms, but on the other hand, it will keep a few people on Windows- until it is ported over somewhere else.

    --
    No reason to lie.
    1. Re:I've installed this by coconutstudio · · Score: 1, Interesting
      Spotlight is better and it is fast! In Macworld keynote speech, Jobs demonstrated it and the search result was fast and instantaneous. "Boom" and it's there. Email, PDF, documents, and any app that supports spotlight. It's a different and possibly a better model than the google.

      --
      http://www.up0.com/
  5. i almost did it... by jabella · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i installed it, and then it was like: "this will take a few hours to index" and I bailed on it. does it really take that long from what people are seeing? I'd love to use it for searching my outlook mail, but hate the idea of the overhead.

  6. App Support by johnthorensen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The sad thing about the Google Desktop is that, for the moment at least, it only supports things like the official AOL Instant Messenger software, Internet Explorer, and Outlook/Outlook Express.

    And I thought Google was supposed to be this big challenger to Microsoft???

    It would be nice to see support for Trillian and other IM clients in addition to Firefox/Thunderbird. I'm hopeful that this will come to fruition, I really can't see how it wouldn't. I can understand the strategy of releasing for these apps though, because of course every computer with Windows preinstalled likely has them.

    -JT

  7. For Linux? by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Gosh - give me something like this for Linux, and I'll kiss some serious feet.

    I've been looking for something for YEARS to replace the "Excite for Web Servers" (EWS) which could easily be cadjoled into indexing your own (Linux) computer when combined with a local copy of Apache.

    It was downright AWESOME, but is no longer maintained, was based on an ANCIENT version of Perl, I've been unable to get it to work on anything beyond RedHat 6.2, and rights are not available anywhere that I've found.

    My home directory is 12 GB in size, and contains work going back 6 years. Making all this searchable would just be the cat's meow...

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  8. Google operating system - the next MS ?? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Interesting
    First Google was cool and independent. Now with e-mail account, "G" searchbox included in your favourite browser, maybe a browser of their own, instant messaging, shareholders onboard, and... a desktop?

    What's next? The Google operating system? Are we looking at the beginnings of a next-generation Microsoft-like empire?

  9. One more step toward the future by Wylfing · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's been my belief for a while that Google is going to be the storage medium of the future. Eventually we'll all share one big searchable "disk" called Google. Gmail and this local search tool are stepping stones toward that end.

    --
    Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
  10. Microsoft's Lookout by __aaitqo8496 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For those of you that don't know, take a look: http://lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/

    Microsoft bought this company which beat Google to the punch on desktop searching. Kinda funny that the letters on the main logo look very Googlish...

  11. Re:From the TOS: by bluekanoodle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is true, but kudos to google for making the opt out during install very clear and easy to use. All you have to do is clear one clearly visible checkbox during the install.

  12. Internet Explorer Add-Ons? by kkovach · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know what they are, but the install complained that I didn't have them enabled, and that I couldn't use it unless they were. I hit cancel.

    I've shut off and/or disabled everything I could in IE, and never use it. Can somebody explain what IE Add-Ons are? Sounds dangerous.

    - Kevin

    --
    The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
  13. Re:Request new file formats by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, or at least be able to set in some options dialog what it should index as plain text... Is about to check this out now, but I fear it won't index, say, *.bak, *.ini, or similar, just because it doesn't understand the extensions. :-(

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  14. As a server? by JoeKatz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On the screenshots he's connecting to 127.0.0.1:4664 Does this mean I can type in ip addresses of other computers on my network that have the Google Destop installed and search them as well?

  15. Re:From the TOS: by athakur999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Opt in is considered by most people here to be the right way to handle things like this. Google is no exception.

    --
    "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
  16. The Text along is cool enough! by sutekh137 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, lots of MS-centric qualities here.

    But the text searching alone is cool in my book. Am waiting for the crawl to reach my development folders, where this tool could search through multiple projects in multiple languages faster than anything else. Provided the code is ASCII, of course...

    --
    What Would Sutekh Do?
  17. Re:Gmail by yertle38 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah.. why doesn't it include Gmail in the search? I guess this would mean your search queries wouldn't be local anymore, but there should be an option to search Gmail inboxes too.

  18. Re:Request new file formats by ChrisMDP · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now that's worth a suggestion - good thought.

    I also suggested that they should allow you to link machines together by name/IP, so that I can search more than one machine's index. It would be so helpful to search across all my machines in one goo.

    Obviously you'd need clear messages and a confirmation popup on the target machine first time you did it - plus a little balloon to say the machine was being searched etc...

  19. Re:No thanks! by Tongo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If your *friend* is searching for gay pr0n on your computer, I don't think you will have to worry about them finding your hidden stash.

  20. Re:Quicksilver for OS X by slavetrade55 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Indispensible, and this is what I would hope the major MS/Apple/etc. efforts produce. Somehow I doubt it, though.

    Isn't Spotlight in the next version of OSX supposed to do something similar?

    (I use QS too...it rocks)

  21. Filetype API by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Google should create an API that will let users create plugins for other filetypes. In no we'll have support for every file format under the sun.

  22. Uhm, no thanks... by rainman_bc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone know how the index is stored? I assume it's stored locally?

    So does the index return the results to google, so google can render it to you?

    Call me skeptical, but if there's sensitive information, how much does google see?

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  23. M$ has just made a blunder by maniac_inside · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This was quite expected, there have been rumors about it for quite some time. The bad thing is that at least in this very particular case M$ did have an edge over google. For close to decade M$ has had an indexing tool that is quite effecient in searching through the files for text and other information. And it is quite real time too. If you search through the index and then modify any file the index is updated immediately. However because of internal conflicts in M$, they have not been able to put it at the fore front. It has a poor interface, and is disabled by default. Though XP gives a slightly better interface to it. I still don't know how many people enable it. Too Bad I can't use it, it says that it requires 1 GB(Hello I think next time it might say I have P3) of hard disk and I only have 248 MB left. If I really had 1 GB I would be playing Halo.

  24. Copernic Desktop Search by tomaasz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Copernic Desktop Search http://www.copernic.com/ is also free and pretty good too.

  25. Re:Request new file formats by phosphorous · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I was thinking about this too. Im guessing that Google will want to keep the quality of its search results high and not open the system to sloppy programming, even if it were to only affect a select number of local installations.

    Also, I can see a whole new class of spyware taking advantage of that functionality. Imagine a piece of spyware or a virus that is able to access the Google Desktop Search application and create all sorts of fake documents on the users system. No matter what they searched for, they'd find microsoft word documents trying to sell them penis enlargement pills or viagra.

    Thats not to say that someone wont hack the GDS application anyhow, but keeping the system closed might be a good way to keep the quality of service high, even if that means that your favorite document format might not be indexed.

    Dont get me wrong, I'd love it if I could hack together some code to allow my trillian chats to be archived. I guess I could write an application that would take all my chat logs and convert them to word documents.

    Everything else aside, the Google Desktop Search application really is a kick ass tool. I must truly be a uber-geek because when I see screenshots of web sites I visited or listings of my emails mixed right in with the google search results, I get that old "I love you Google" feeling all over again :)

  26. M$ made blunder by maniac_inside · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This was quite expected, there have been rumors about it for quite some time. The bad thing is that at least in this very particular case M$ did have an edge over google. For close to decade M$ has had an indexing tool that is quite effecient in searching through the files for text and other information. And it is quite real time too. If you search through the index and then modify any file the index is updated immediately. However because of internal conflicts in M$, they have not been able to put it at the fore front. It has a poor interface, and is disabled by default. Though XP gives a slightly better interface to it. I still don't know how many people enable it. Too Bad I can't use it, it says that it requires 1 GB of hard disk and I only have 248 MB left. I just wonder what reaction of /. would have been had this been the case with Microsoft Desktop.