Yahoo Releases Desktop Search Tool Beta

Rolan writes "Yahoo! has released to BETA their Desktop Search Tool. It has a much longer list of file types that it will search, including compressed files, than the Google Desktop Search Tool. Though, the usefulness of a good number of those file types would come into question for most people."

Comments

Yahoo! Says, "Me Too!" -- Again

[savagedome]

Motley Fool has a write up about YDS.

http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2005/mft05011117.htm

Yet another desktop search tool

[albn]

MSN, Yahoo and Google have the desktop search tools. Now everybody will follow suit. That's all fair and good, but isn't that why your OS has a "search" tool? I do not see the usefulness of a tool and will open you up to more problems than you need....

Re:Yet another desktop search tool

[savagedome]

I wish Google had named their product Google Desktop Find. After it is finished indexing, it doesn't really 'Search'.

Re:Yet another desktop search tool

[sH4RD]

Hmmm...I assume you mean Windows? Well Windows has a picture editing program, but I don't see you using that do I? Competition == good, almost always. If the search companies want to compete with MS, more power to them. If MS wants to sit back and let the search engines compete, more power to them. In the end a better product will result. You already install your new picture editor when you install Windows, so why not install your new search too? (Oh, and a note: MS is not sitting back. They own MSN after all.)

Re:Yet another desktop search tool

[EnronHaliburton2004]

That's all fair and good, but isn't that why your OS has a "search" tool?

Well, the built in search tool for Windows isn't very good. It's slow, can't search (Some? All?) compressed files, doesn't have ranked search results, doesn't search your Outlook folders, and I need to turn off the stupid doggie every time I log into a new system.

I haven't used any of these Desktop search tools, but the Google search mechanism is great, and I can definately see it being a useful tools. I won't use it because of the privacy concerns.

I can't imagine why MSN has a desktop search tool... "Microsoft says that Microsoft's built in search tool 'sucks'..."

Finally!

[solowCX]

I can search my collection of MacWrite II files!

Cool

[durtbag]

I'm still waiting for CoolWWWSearch to come out with their desktop search utility.

Usefulness

[papadiablo]

While it's an interesting subject to explore, I'm not convinced of the usefulness of this product. I installed the Google desktop search when it first game out, used it for about a week, and then stopped. Usually I know where things on my computer are, and don't need to search for them. But if I do need to search for them, chances are I will just use whichever application is appropriate to search for them. For instance, if I'm in Outlook and I want to find a mail about something then I'll search in Outlook. I don't want to switch to a browser to find emails. I don't know how applicable it would be for me to want to search through both email and other documents for the same thing. Anybody have some counter examples to share?

Re:Usefulness

[hal9000(jr)]

Yep.

I use Outlook and I can search for and locate Outlook emails in about 2 seconds. When I use Outlook search, I have to wait until it searches every single email and them presents them to me and here is the kicker, I can't do anything else while Outlook is searching otherwise the search stops. I have a couple of 1000 emails (I tend to keep deleted email for a long time and I rarely clean out my in box).

Another use is that I have alot of files for work in My Documents that I refer back to often as far as a year or so. No amount of organizing is going to save me time locating stuff.

The point is, computers are good at indexing and searching, I am not, so let the computer do the work.

Re:Usefulness

[dakirw]

The problem with Outlook search is that it can be incredibly slow if you have a bit mailbox. The search options are also limited.

Going with Google search is a lot faster in this case. It's also convenient to see all possible results in one search location.

Of course, there are security issues involved, but that's another story.

Re:Usefulness

[MrEnigma]

The answer to this is Lookout for Outlook.

Basically does google type searching, very fast, and it adds right in. I use it almost daily.

http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/

Re:Usefulness

[jalefkowit]

I agree, Lookout makes Outlook practically tolerable. In fact, Microsoft thought so much of the Lookout team that they bought the company and turned what used to be a for-pay product into a free download.

Additionally, many of the Lookout team are supposed to have worked on the new MSN Toolbar for Outlook, which is supposedly quite good (though I have not had a chance to try it myself yet).

Forgot something?

[mscnln]

They spend their time deciphering file formats that haven't been used for 10 years, but they don't include AbiWord or OpenOffice whose file format is open??

OpenOffice.org/StarOffice

[kosmosik]

I can't understand why it does not index OOo/SO documents? Those formats are *open* and well documented. Or FireFox/Mozilla bookmarks/mail/history - it is also open and documented - I bet the community is also willing to help when they (Yahoo developers) have some issues with that. Also probably it is more common than some obscure DOS editors...

In my office we use only OOo (but on Windows) FireFox and Thunderbird - we have crafted some rather nice services including central databases with LDAP export to email clients, custom web apps running exclusively with FireFox (XUL-based), OpenOffice.org is connected to databases also, all server infrastructure is running Linux (Fedora) and lowlevel stuff (DNS, routing, FW etc.) is working on OpenBSD...

So - having desktop search tool that will allow to index that (OOo/Mozilla) will be usefull to us. Todays offering simply suck as they go indexing only some expensive and crappy formats that some expensive and ureliable software produces...

Re:OpenOffice.org/StarOffice

[danielcole]

can I please work in your office? please!?!

Re:OpenOffice.org/StarOffice

[stg]

Have you actually seen the documentation of Firefox's formats?

The history file, for example, is spectacularly awful. Check out https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24143 8
(not a link since bugzilla won't accept Slashdot as a referrer) - "please make history.dat easier to parse (i.e., not Mork)"

Some other references to the format:

http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/arch/mork/primer.t xt
http://jwz.livejournal.com/312657.html
http://www.jwz.org/doc/mailsum.html

Re:OpenOffice.org/StarOffice

[jambarama]

I've used Copernic for a while (since the comparison on http://slate.msn.com/id/2111643/) and it'll do star office, open office or anything else you want. By default it searches firefox history (I don't use thunderbird so I can't vouch for it's ability there). I have found it quite effective for OOo though.

I don't use it now just because I know where my stuff is, but it was fun to mess around with. Give it a shot here: http://www.copernic.com/.

w00t

[tuxter]

Google - "w00t"
MS - "w00t"
Yahoo - "w00t"
Google - "Ah, fuck it!"

If Google were to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge...

[turnstyle]

nuff said? ;)

and, fwiw, Google should lose that "I'm feeling lucky" button.

Lacking

[Docrates]

What I need is for these tools to look into email headers, so that if I'm looking for information regarding "contract negotiations with Xerox" it will look into the "to:" line in the message header (@xerox.com) even if the message doesn't mention the company's name. The fact that this feature's not there yet has been the source of at least 50% of all failures by google desktop to find what I'm looking for. Yahoo doesn't seem to fix this either.

And before all those "what do you need this when you have the windows search tool" posts start popping up... two words: indexing and content (as in the content of files, not just the filename.

open source?

[weighn]

this isn't meant to be a troll, but has work begun on an open source desktop search tool?

A quick peek at sourceforge makes me think no.

Re:open source?

[naugrim]

Beagle is the closest thing out there that I know of for open source. It isn't web based but when it works properly (it's still in development) it is supposed to be able to search bookmarks, email, IM logs, etc. similar to how these desktop search programs work.

Re:open source?

[burns210]

There sure has.

Clean interface

[g_braad]

YDS has a very clean interface with a nice large preview pane, something i disliked in Copernic (small and cluttered at the bottom). Although, I don't think it is the best... it has no specification of which files to index and where from?! i can't specify the directories and probably it also always index Outlook and Outlook Express??? I don't use it.

On un*x/linux (mono) I like Beagle very much... it can become VERY promising.

Re:Clean interface

[g_braad]

It does have directory specification:

Tools -> Options -> Indexing -> Files -> More Indexing Options

proof of concept?

[Antonymous Flower]

I'm not sure I understand what yahoo or google have to gain from this product. It appears to me this is more a proof of concept than a tool. Could this be the groundwork for some future invasion of privacy?

Re:If Google were to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

[SUB7IME]

But then the search for 'French Military Victories' would be so bland.

Re:Directories

[AntigonusPiglet]

It's in the FAQ (http://desktop.yahoo.com/faq):

Yahoo Desktop Search ... gives you control to change those settings including:

• Only index files that are explicitly marked for indexing
• Only index specific file types and not index others
• Only index files under a specific file size
• Configure indexing options on a directory by directory basis, including:
• Never index
• Index only filenames and sizes
• Index filenames, sizes, and file contents

The REAL Desktop Search

[CypherXero]

This is what a REAL desktop search looks like.

Do you have a lot of emails?

[Augusto]

I have years of emails, and it takes a long time to do searchers in Outlook. Ironically, GDS is way faster and much better than outlook to search for email, I no longer use Outlook search which is slow and as mentioned by another poster stops me from other work I might be doing with that application.

As it turns out, searching is a common OS like function that is justified to be outside of the individual apps. It's nice that you seem to have a good organization system for all your stuff, but I have so many files that a hierarchy is not going to help me find stuff in 1-2 seconds.

Re:What is wrong with find?

[DrEasy]

Desktop search tools create an index of your files' content which makes searching files almost instantaneous.