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Desktop Search Engines Compared

Posted by timothy on from the operating-system-handicapped dept.

nutterButter writes "After Google created a stir with its desktop search engine, other engines gained more awareness in the public eye. Slate did a comparison of them and Google was not their top pick; Copernic was. I tried it - and am quite impressed."

12 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. history search by FrenZon · · Score: 5, Informative

    The biggest use (and what makes it a necessity for me now) I have for a desktop search tool is searching for a webpage I partially remember visiting a few weeks ago, but need more information from. GDS indexes the content of all pages as you visit them, making finding them relatively easy - as far as I could tell (tested over half an hour), Copernic only indexed title and URL, which was of much less use.

    A minor point for the geekier here - GDS can also be activated using quicksearch URLs from IE or Firefox, which is handy for those used to getting everything from one field.

    1. Re:history search by duncangough · · Score: 3, Informative

      Install your own proxy server and let that do the searching and indexing.

      Like this: Python proxy server - a proxy server, written in Python, that uses Lucene/Lupy to do the indexing and searching.

      --
      Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
  2. DT Search by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've tried these so-called "Desktop Search" apps like Google and Copernic, but they're all crap. If you want serious desktop search, get something like DTSearch (http://dtsearch.com/PLF_desktop_2.html).

    Only problem is DTSearch is hella expensive at $200.

    But if you've got serious amounts of text that you need to search (I use it to search through 80gb of text on an external HD), its the only way to go.

  3. Some GNOME folks look to be working on it. by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 5, Informative

    Beagle is a search tool that ransacks your personal information space to find whatever you're looking for. Beagle can search in many different domains.

    The latest edition of the Beagle newsletter has just been released.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  4. Re:Linux anyone? by ken_devon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow. The timing on this article is uncanny. I installed Beagle yesterday, and I'm already addicted to it - it indexes documents, mail and web pages as they're accessed, and updates it search results in real time.

  5. Re:Why is desktop search so hot? by mOoZik · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, it CAN search inside of files, contrary to your post. The results can then be arranged by size, type, folder, date, etc. Isn't that enough?

    --
    A blog like any other.
  6. Re:Apple's coming out with something like this... by Shanep · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's called Mac OS X Tiger.

    Actually, it is called Spotlight.

    Which will be a part of Tiger, the latest upcoming version of Mac OSX.

    --
    War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
  7. FYI, Copernic contains adware. by Shanep · · Score: 4, Informative

    Copernic's Privacy Policy reveals that, "Copernic Technologies, Inc. works with third parties that transmit advertisements to the Copernic Agent and Copernic Desktop Search product families and Copernic Meta."

    --
    War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
    1. Re:FYI, Copernic contains adware. by Scutter · · Score: 3, Informative

      Copernic's Privacy Policy reveals that, "Copernic Technologies, Inc. works with third parties that transmit advertisements to the Copernic Agent and Copernic Desktop Search product families and Copernic Meta."

      It also says this:


      # Keywords and result contents processed by Copernic Desktop Search
      Copernic Desktop Search does not allow transmission of keywords or result contents to Copernic Technologies, Inc. or any of its partner for searches conducted by the user on his computer or corporate or home network. If the software ever requires collection and processing of data, such as user's profile, location, search history, fields of interest and tastes, these data should be processed only by the user's computer and not be transmitted deliberately to Copernic Technologies, Inc. or any of its partner.

      I'd like to know how they reconcile the two. CDS does interface to web searches, though, so perhaps that's what they use.

      --

      "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
  8. Re:Why is desktop search so hot? by eric_01 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have about 6 years worth (10 gigs) of old project files sitting on my hard drive. I use X1 and think its an absolute god send. Just type in a few keywords and X1 pulls up the file. I used to have to pour through a dozen levels of directories and rely on my rusty memory to try to find files.

  9. Re:Linux anyone? by dAzED1 · · Score: 3, Informative
    if every document you have is cached, then there are two copies of every document, which is a serious waste of space. I think what you mean to say is that its indexed, but I'm not going to answer all your questions for you.



    there's no reason to grep your entire damn harddrive for a single phrase. Use some degree of organization. The business world has limited use for someone who can't keep themselves organized.



    finally - egrep will easily find patterns in all sorts of binary files. Creating a tiny little happy gui to search for things in your folders with DOCUMENTS (instead of searching your whole damn hard drive) is easy enough, if typing egrep "Thing I Want" * proves to just be too darn complicated.

  10. Take your pick by useosx · · Score: 4, Informative

    Please, the Mac shareware developers practically invented this genre:

    Launchbar (the first)

    Quicksilver The current favorite, and free.

    Butler About the same as Quicksilver, more features but not as slick.