Google Desktop Search
Call me predictable, but I tend to love all things Google. However, this is an area where my playdoh-colored friends and I part company. When we first heard hints that Google would be oogling our desktops, I had high hopes. Remember the first time you used Google Deskbar? Up popped this mini-browser (and rather quickly at that, I might add). You could re-size it and even use it to view web pages if you configured things properly. I dreamed that Google would unleash this same type of search capability upon my hard drive. Sadly, friends, it is not so.
In my test searches, I found that Google Desktop Search really wasn't all that quick at returning results. Now, I might be quibbling over a few seconds here and there, but look-and-feel tend to be just as important as function these days (just ask the Windows Vista team about Mac OS X). I found nothing lacking in the actual results returned, but I spend enough time in my browser with Google that having yet another web page full of results just didn't do it for me. Filtering is limited to clicking the categories listed above your search results (e.g. All, Emails, or Files), but if you're just looking for MS Word docs, you're going to have to re-do your Google Desktop preferences to only query for those file types. While you do get a thumbnail preview of some queried files (mostly web/HTML-based files and images), you don't get any usable preview of your files. Maybe they'll get these right in another version or two.
Microsoft Windows Desktop Search
Bucking current trends (and often common sense) I also tend to have high hopes for Microsoft products--if for no other reason than that they know all the secret code and can integrate their apps more tightly into the OS. Even though Windows Desktop Search uses Windows Explorer to bring up results (and I'm using it on a decently robust machine), it still seemed to lag in both returning results and producing previews.
Interestingly enough, double-clicking the taskbar icon doesn't launch the search app, instead you're presented with a menu of options, one of which is Search Now--hmmm, maybe that's what I wanted when I double-clicked the icon!? Once you have the window open, search speed is so-so, and while previews take a few seconds to appear, they are indeed fully readable previews of your files (note that large documents will take a while to appear in your preview pane).
My high hopes twice-dashed against the shore of reality, and with the recommendation of none other than PC World's Stephen Manes, I held my nose and turned to Yahoo!
Yahoo! Desktop Search [BETA]
In our pre-Google universe I used to appreciate Yahoo! more, but once Google caught my eye, I seemed destined to never return to my once and former paramour. I think it was the ugly Yahoo! Instant Messenger that drove us apart. All that aside, Yahoo! Desktop Search takes a different approach to displaying your files. When you double-click the taskbar icon, up pops the app showing a full listing of all your files. The other contenders start with a blank slate to fill, but with Yahoo! as you type your search value in the box, the list automatically adapts, cutting those files which don't meet your criteria. Previews seemed to load more quickly in Yahoo!'s Desktop Search, but every once in a while it would auto-resize the document into a smaller, nearly unreadable size. You can right-click and choose Normal under the Preview heading to set things right, but it's still a glitch--hence it's still in beta.
One of the best things about Yahoo!'s tool is how it let's you filter your query results. You can use the handy tabs across the top of the window, or click the refine button to further detail how you want things filtered. While Windows DS has some similar functions they're not nearly as granular, and Yahoo!'s are just handier and laid out better. Another trick Yahoo! manages is allowing you to immediately click on buttons above the preview pane to reply/forward e-mail, or attach and send documents in e-mail immediately. Even Windows DS doesn't allow for that.
However, I do have one complaint. When looking for a word document that was an attachment, I had to look under the attachment tab, not the documents tab. Microsoft's tool does a better job of delineating this and looking at all documents (attachments or not) as docs, but I think I can learn to live with this. I'll just keep reminding myself it's in beta.
Some users of each of these tools have reported issues with the time it takes to index their drives, but I've been running all three simultaneously for quite a while, and I've not noticed any performance issues, nor any long waits for indexing to complete.
Other Contenders
Copernic Desktop Search was actually one of the first free options out there, but I remember it bogging down my system and not exactly being speedy. I'm probably being too harsh and a bit unfair in comparing their product of two years ago with today's new stuff, so I may give it another chance at some future undisclosed date. Updates to follow.
Being a Mac user (about 30% of the time), I've also enjoyed the benefits of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's (yes you have to spell it out this way each time or Stevie the Boy Wonder gets all up in your face) Spotlight. It's quick, it's free (if you own the OS), and Microsoft's going to have its work cut out in copying it for Vista--especially sans WinFS. Of course, you can't use any of the aforementioned apps on a Mac, and you can't use Spotlight in Windows, so while Spotlight is cool, it's no real competition. Unless [insert dream sequence segue here]...once Apple goes fully Intel, and the BIOS guys make it ultra quick to switch between OS X and Windows on a dual-boot Apple system, then I could use Spotlight to find stuff on my hard drive...okay, so it's a bit far fetched, but a guy's gotta have a dream.
- Hutch
