Google Releases GDS 2.0

FansofTech writes "Google (now $4bn richer) has released v2.0 of Google Desktop. Many new features are introduced including improved Outlook filtering, Gmail indexing, and the feature which is most likely to cause the largest stir...a new Sidebar which displays RSS feeds, a Gmail inbox, news, scratch pad and more. Plug-ins for the new Sidebar are also available including a to-do list, clock, and more. As one blogger pointed out this morning...the release of Google Desktop 2.0 is beginning to take shape as a browser in itself as the need for a Firefox or IE is almost eliminated."

Comments

And most important of all

[Jarlsberg]

It finally supports indexing of files from network shares natively. :)

Privacy Issues

[AlexTheBeast]

I am not a huge privacy kind of guy, but google is getting a little crazy with what they save about you now.

They are now recording click-throughs on their search pages. Why do they need this information? It wasn't too long ago that links on google.com went straight to the link... not back through the google servers...

Just remember to clean out your google desktop index history.

Is our privacy now worth more than free software?

(Tin-foil hat mode off)

Re:Privacy Issues

[jayloden]

Conspiracy theory: Google records all the clickthroughs on their searches to record every piece of information about you for the Government spy agencies and evil spyware marketing.

Realistic theory: What better way to rank a page's relevancy than by determining which links are chosen by the searchers for a given keyword or set of keywords? This helps eliminate the dross from a search, since you know which of the search results previous searchers found at least interesting enough to click through.

Re:Privacy Issues

[jeremy_a]

>> What better way to rank a page's relevancy than by determining which links are chosen by the searchers for a given keyword or set of keywords?

> bad side effect...

> page 1 & 2 search results will firmly become engrained there by this method as everyone clicks on the top few results normally

That could be a problem if the results fed directly into the page rank. But it would seem more logical to use this to cull bad links from the top 10. If people consistenly ignore the first link for a particular search, but instead click on the second or third links, it would be a good indication that the top link isn't very good and should be moved down the list, which could in turn allow a new link to bubble up to the top 10.

Hmm, really?

[MaestroSartori]

"...the need for a Firefox or IE is almost eliminated..."

Other than that minor, troublesome web-browsing feature presumably? :)

Google Digital Assistant

[simp]

I want my GDA (Google Digital Assistant). Then I can wander around the world and if I have a question I can look it up in my GDA.
And it should look friendly and reassuring.

Re:Google Digital Assistant

[thedbp]

But most importantly, it should be emblazoned with the words "Don't Panic."

Thunderbird mail!

[jfengel]

I've been waiting for it to index Thunderbird mail, because Thunderbird's search is pretty slow. It claims to do that now. Yay!

Google - windows only?

[yitzhak]

It seems that as Google encourages developers to write windows-only plugins, and GDS comes to rely on third-party plugins for functionality, it'll become that much more difficult to ever see GDS on OS X or linux. Of course, OS X has Spotlight, but it looks like Google is gunning for more than just desktop search, and instead providing a platform that ties Google services and the Desktop together. (Those looking for a GoogleOS - this is probably the closest we're going to get.)

If Yahoo! gets serious with Konfabulator, it could provide a similar service, but in a cross-platform manner. Likely? Perhaps not. But Yahoo! seems to be shaking it's past history of Windows-only support and moving towards platform independence, while Google is bringing out more and more Windows-only products (GDS, Accelerator, Earth). Just another reason that Google seems to be losing geek mindshare while Yahoo! is gaining it. Just look at the rising number of comments on slashdot that are questioning Google's benevolence, or supporting Yahoo!'s newfound drive to openness - flawed though slashdot may be, the comments give you a good barometer for the geek world.

The Wrong Direction

[eno2001]

I love Google and all of the really cool things they've come up with. I love the fact that they've been able to make such intricate web applications and use very little bandwidth to present users with decent interfaces. But, I think the Google Desktop might be the wrong direction with it's toolbar. Part of the problem that I see with it is that it presents information to the user by default. This is a BAD thing. Users don't typically want or care for information unless they are interested in it right at the moment. By presenting it to them automatically, you make it invisible. Since they see it often enough to annoy them, they wind up ignoring (then worse) and forgetting that it's there.

If you think about it, how many times do you know users who actually use the clock that is displayed on their task bar? I've seen many people at various places I've worked, completely ignore their own PC and look at the clock on the wall. Or, they might even ask someone, "do you know what time it is"? when it's right there in front of them. It's not that they're stupid or that they don't understand what that clock does. It's that they've been OVEREXPOSED to it. This holds true for weather, and headlines as well. Rather than bombarding the user with information, let it agreggate the info in a hidden area with constant updates. Then (much like the Dashboard in Mac OS X) using a special key combo, function key or maybe a clickable area, present the information as a translucent area over the existing desktop. This will then force the user to focus on the new information without being able to interact or be distracted by what is now backgrounded.

My other concern is that by Google designing a full application that rests on top of Windows, they are putting themselves in two unenviable positions:

1. Due to the various interactions between programs from multiple vendors, they may get blamed for system instability if there is a negative interaction with another app that a user has installed. Where I work there is an app that users love that shifts their desktop background randomly and puts a "neat" calendar on their desktop. However, it's blamed for instability frequently. Maybe it is unstable, or maybe it's interacting poorly with another app. Who knows? But that's the problem with utilities that run in the background vs. apps that the user is focused on 100% when running.

2. Microsoft, since they percieve Google to be a threat are very likely going to make this Dekstop thing break. It's happened many times before and you know it will happen again. This tried and true Microsoft Tactic(tm) could result in extra work for the Google programmers who wrote this app.

Finally, they'd be better off designing a replacement shell for Windows if they really want to have a "Google Desktop". They would still be at the mercy of item two above, but item one would apply less since the Google Desktop would now be the shell that the user interacts with all the time. If it's well written, the user should only notice the benefits of an alternative shell to Microsoft's Explorer shell (which is pretty ugly and clunky). If they did this, they might be able to port to other OSes and possibly provide an avenue for people to exit the Windows fold and go with a GNU/Linux/Google Desktop distribution.

Something for a corporate environment?

[mr i want to go home]

I was pretty excited about the original Google Desktop for work - the projects we run have thousands of emails and documents, and the Google desktop search was turning out to be a goodsend for tracking old, but vital documents. However, there didn't seem to be any way to get the index out of a user's personal folders - which meant of course that the 1GB+ index files were getting written back to the server with each log-off.

I know Google have some Enterprise level appliances and tools...but we're only 25 people. That doesn't mean we don't generate butt loads of data - just that we can't afford the big kit. Google desktop would be great if it was just a bit more network friendly and configurable, but at the moment it seems targeted strictly for the home user.

I'm hoping that someone will tell me this version will prove me wrong, but I can't see anything to suggest that in the documentation yet...

Re:Something for a corporate environment?

[DCstewieG]

It was possible to change the location, but you had to do it in the registry. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\data_dir

Data being passed back to Google?

[passionplay]

So does anyone have any news on what information is being passed back to Google or what security settings to choose so that my privacy stays intact? Or is this one of those situations where you have go "give up a little freedom" for "increased convenience" a la "giving up a little freedom" for "increased safety and security?? Thanks.

Mac version

[jcostantino]

Ok, they have 4 billion dollars, where the fuck is the Mac version?

Re:Mac version

[Alystair]

Stop trying to put Google into the spotlight!

It still sits in the middle of your TCP stack

[joshrulzzatwork]

No one has posted yet, so either /. is borked or you guys are all hard at work, heh.

Reading over their developer site (http://desktop.google.com/queryapi.html), it looks like the engine still listens on the same port the first version did, so I am guessing it still sits in the middle of the Windows TCP/DNS stack so that when you go to the normal Google homepage, you see the desktop search choice, and results from your own desktop. I would rather GDS run as a process that searches my drive, listen on a port for my brower to post a search to, and then dump the results back to a browser window. The page I linked basically describes that, however without installing, I can't tell if they still incorporate themselves into their internet site.

After playing with version 1 last year, I gave http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search /Copernic DS a shot, and have been happy with it. It's fast, has its own UI so it doesn't have to hook into how Windows talks to the web to let me use it, and it indexes IM conversations (athlough you have to manually point its indexer to your chat log directory). My main complaint in memory use. At my previous job, it could take up to 120 megs of memory. Here, where I have been for only 2 months, it uses around 35.

Re:Still useless

[oojah]

Try going to the preferences and "Search these locations" and you will be able to add drives to your hearts content.

Did you also know that it is possible to change where the "My Documents" virtual folder refers to? I have all of my data on a seperate drive so changed it to point to there.

Right click on the "My Documents" on your desktop and choose properties and you should see the details for changing the location.

Cheers,

Roger

Re:Browser need eliminated?

[hyfe]

And how do you access GMail without a browser?

It's actually quite hard.Basically, it involves using the so-called "Post Office Protocol", one large hack of an inadequate mess. It's a bitch to set up, and not something I would wish upon anybody. Stay well clear!

If you're the masochistic type,check out these fairly esotoric sites though:
Explanation here and more details here

Re:New MS!

[StevoJ]

Two Microsofts fighting each other I can cope with. It's when there's only one I start to worry.

Re:Help me out here

[jekk]

You can't get much more reliable than the contractually binding published privacy policy:

http://desktop.google.com/privacypolicy.html

To quote: "Your computer's content is not made accessible through Google Desktop to Google without your explicit permission."

-- Michael Chermside

Re:Browser need eliminated?

[isilrion]

And, of course, if you are really feeling geeky, you can launch python and
 
 

import libgmail
acc=libgmail.GmailAccount('username','pa ss')
acc.login()
msgs = acc.getMessagesByQuery('is:unread')
foreach thread in msgs:
    for msg in thread:
        print msg.source

Joking aside, I've had to do that. Very useful (and annoying) when you need to check your email, have no browser around, and you remember that you forgot *again* to enable pop3 in your gmail account.

Isilrion

P.S: Yes, that has happened!