Google Desktop Now on Linux

mytrip writes "Google was set to launch late on Wednesday a beta version of Google Desktop search for Linux in a sign of encouragement by the search giant for Linux on the desktop. Google Desktop allows people to search the Web while also searching the full text of all the information on their computer, including Gmail and their Web search history. Because the index is stored locally on the computer, users can access Gmail and Web history while offline."

Comments

Privacy

[PaisteUser]

Does anybody have concern for Google knowing what's on their local disks?

Re:Privacy

[st0nes]

Will they know? It says the index is stored locally, does that mean it never goes to Google?

Re:Privacy

[Simon (S2)]

Does anybody have concern for Google knowing what's on their local disks? Yes I do. That's why I will never use this (or any other Desktop Search that is not Open Source).

Re:Privacy

[nickallen]

It's a good point but then shouldn't you extend that thought to all proprietary software? Without the source code any software could be doing a search of your files without you knowing. It seems strange to say you will boycott google search but not other proprietary products just because google's product is software that performs searches. It really depends on how much you trust the vendor when it comes to proprietary software.

Re:Privacy

[somersault]

Maybe when you were given the ability to trawl through every line of code just to make sure it's doing what you think it's doing? There are a lot of very geeky/bored people out there you know.. and if anyone was dumb enough to release source that blatantly contained violations of users' privacy, then someone is bound to notice and complain, put it up on /. , etc..

Re:Privacy

[ThinkingInBinary]

No, it's more like security by diversity. If a burglar had to try dozens of entirely different types of keys (never mind all the key patterns that each type includes) to break into a house, he would not find breaking into houses as attractive a prospect, and if he did try, it would be more likely that someone would notice him. Similarly, if a hacker has to try dozens of different buffer overflow attacks against your system, he's less likely to target it, and if he does, you're more likely to notice it, since naturally a buffer overflow attack will degrade into a crashed program if it doesn't actually execute the intended payload.

Besides, there's nothing wrong with security by obscurity, as long as it's only one tool. For example, moving your ssh port to 2222 instead of 22 will probably subject you to an order of magnitude or two fewer ssh worms, which is a good thing. But of course you'd still want to have good passwords. Obscurity is a useful tool, especially when you are protecting a system that has no intrinsic reason to be selected. It can make you less of a target, and since security is never perfect, any layer that reduces the probability of an attack is useful.

Re:Privacy

[Big Nothing]

I don't normally reply to AC trolls, but I'll bite today:

* No, I don't thrawl through every line of code of every FOSS program I use.
* Those programs that I _do_ go through, I can most certainly miss something or not understand something.

But it's still more likely that I'll find a secret backdoor in an open-source program than in a closed-source one. And the real beauty isn't that _I_ have to find something, but that others, like me, can find something. Nothing much can beat the collective scrutiny of a million nerds.

Re:Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

And the real beauty isn't that _I_ have to find something, but that others, like me, can find something. Nothing much can beat the collective scrutiny of a million nerds. Million nerds? Try a few thousand. Those Millions of nerds you speak of don't have time (unlike you) to read through random code and waste countless hours getting upto speed unless they are going to benefit from it.

People just want good quality free software. Nobody gives a fuck about "open" :)

Re:Spousal Abuse

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Google is a publicly held company, not a soup kitchen.

Re:Spousal Abuse

[suv4x4]

It's kind of sad that a company who powers its hundreds of thousands of computers [redhat.com] in clusters with a trimmed down RedHat puts Linux second on the list of operating systems to support with its software.

You assume they built Google Desktop to run it on their own clustered computers? Or is this one blatantly fallacious argument you pulled off there.

How about counting the OS numbers on the machines they're targeting.

How does it run?

[oddman]

The article says it was "developed natively." So this is definitely not the win.exe version wrapped in Wine?

Re:Spousal Abuse

[ElleyKitten]

Google is a publicly held company, not a soup kitchen. That analogy would only work if all the homeless people at the soup kitchen wrote their software and ran their company, yet Google would still not allow them to try their products until everyone else had.

No 64 bit

[JackieBrown]

I wish they would start making 64 bit versions of their stuff so we could quit trying to force install their products.

Re:No 64 bit

[Anonymous Coward]

Compiling it yourself requires that you have source code. Google's apps are not open source.

This delay has been good

[clashdot]

Thank you Google for delaying the Linux version! We now have Beagle, Strigi, the Nepomuk project and more as free alternatives to your proprietary software. There would have been free desktop search software anyway, but most likely there would have been a bit less enthusiasm for its development, and some distributions might have flocked to supporting the Google product.

I'm excited that Linux is still flying under the radar to such a large extent, when it comes to commercial software. Soon it will be Ready For The Desktop (TM) and the Linux desktop is still 100% free!

Re:This delay has been good

[Vexorian]

Linux was ready for the desktop years ago, although there are still people that think "ready for the desktop" means "complete windows clone"

+500 Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was another company it would've been flamed to ashes. But nooooooo, closed source from google is supposed to be cool?

Waiting for the -paid by MS- blogers to talk about "the Desktop Users" and "the corporate Customer", both of which are imaginary and used as excuses to create dumb, insecure and user friendly software.

Web browser interface sucks

[Danathar]

Although I like Google desktop, I REALLY wish there was a way to have my results come up in some sort of file management application like explorer(windows), or Konqueror (File manager, not browser), or my file management app of choice.

You can't work with the results when they come up in your browser window.

This is one thing that Spotlight really does have going for it. Being able to have a search folder which dynamically has all the results I want whenever I open it is really useful. Now spotlight needs some work and is not perfect, but google desktop is really lacking in this area.

Obsession with search

[Orlando]

Am I the only one baffled by this obsession with local search? I send most of 5 days a week using desktop computers and a lot of the weekends, and I have to say that I very rarely need to search for anything locally. I put stuff where I can find it later using simple directory structures. Is that so difficult?

Woo hoo!

[sportster]

Great now we can have beta versions of malware running on our linux desktops too!

security?

[spwelton]

For those of you on Linux with google desktop, why are you concerned about security. Just use a firewall. Firestarter is relatively easy to set up and you can watch google's stuff if you want to. Sean

Too much space

[CockroachMan]

I used this on Windows for some time.. then I've found out that it's index was occupying 600MB of my HD! On Linux I'm happy with my " find / -name 'whatever' " :P

GoogleOS?

[The MAZZTer]

Maybe this is in preparation for Linux-based GoogleOS? We can only hope.

Re:What make Linux secure is...

[nschubach]

So you're saying Linux is secure because it's hard to develop for? Not hard to develop for... hard to develop "around".

Re:Google This! - shameless website plug

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop replying to the first post.