Google Launches Desktop Search Tool 715
hanky writes "Google brings search to your very desktop with Google Desktop, a mini Google index of your own. Search your filesystem, Outlook or Outlook Express inbox, AIM instant message transcripts, and Internet Explorer cache. There's a full introduction to the Google Desktop over at the O'Reilly Network. It's Windows-only, but still cool enough for this Mac guy to find it intriguing."
The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Interesting)
Being able to google my machine would be the best thing this side of perpetual motion.
Having to start doing everything with AIM, IE, Outlook and MS-Office would be the worst thing this side of the universal solvent.
Why, oh why, did they have to specifically aim this at all the apps I don't use?
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd use this tool in a minute if I wasn't using IRC, firefox, thunderbird and StarOffice on OS X.
Open source community, I hear a cry for a new project.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't help you if you're using OS X though...
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be fantastic...my spiritual pain was caused by reading their list of supported apps, which was AIM, Outlook (Express), text, IE, Excel, Word and PowerPoint(!).
I supposed they didn't say it didn't work with other apps.
If I wasn't at work, I'd download it and futz. But I am, which means even if I did install it, it would happily find IE, Outlook, Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
*sigh*
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there must be certain files that it needs to update, and Opera/Firefox/etc may have them locked. perhaps.
It closed Outlook on me too.
Now it's indexing all my files, Outlook, etc. Quite a nifty little thing.
Only works on Windows XP and Windows 2000 SP3+, incidently, so worthless if you have Windows ME.
It's handy for me in work (with I have to use Outlook, Office, etc), but at home I use Thunderbird, OO.org, and Trillian, so I don't think I'll be installing it at home. Though I might just for search my files...
T.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Funny)
I think you put the word "worthless" in the wrong spot in that statement...
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:3, Insightful)
That was Windows98 and MSIE 4.0, btw. y'know, just in case you were wondering how that turned out.
Not to be flamebait, however, because I think Apple has a better eye turned towards security in 2004 than Microsoft did in 1998.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Informative)
not really [google.com].
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lame. That's not reassuring at all. I would be a lot happier if they said we WILL be adding increased Firefox support in the future. Yes I understand the econmics of it and that marketshare had a lot to do with it. But considering that its the advanced users who pimped Google and helped really spread the word about it they could have thrown us a bone.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Informative)
Look! They have a specific category on their feedback page for asking to Firefox support.
Why not jump on and ask them to hurry up and support it. They aren't psychic (or maybe they are. gooogle is pretty damn good).
For the mac (Score:4, Informative)
http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
I have been using that for months now and don't know how I could get by without it.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose you're all too cool to have ever used MacOS 8.5 - 9.2, which came complete with FindByContent and the FBCIndexingScheduler for use with Sherlock 1.0 (back when it was an Oooh! Wow! feature, circa 1998).
If you ever mount a Windows partition on MacOS, it will still to this day put
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Informative)
>>
Q: I can't find webpages I viewed with Mozilla Firefox.
A:
Google Desktop Search is only partially compatible with Mozilla Firefox. If you install Desktop Search and open a Firefox browser window, you'll see a 'Desktop' link appear on the Google homepage. You can click this link to go to the Desktop Search homepage whenever you want to search with Desktop Search.
Web pages which you view in Firefox aren't added to your Desktop Search index, however, so you won't be able to find them with Desktop Search.
We realize that many of our users use Mozilla Firefox as their primary browser, and we may consider adding increased Firefox support in a future version of Desktop Search.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:4, Informative)
I would be very surprised if Google Desktop Search doesn't have this functionality by the time Tiger is released. Are there other ways in which Spotlight goes "WAY beyond"?
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Interesting)
The inmates have been evicted, someone else is running this asylum.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:3, Informative)
the Desktop Google browser caches information and links retreived by IE.
Since FF uses a different method for caching, they need to adapt it for Firefox.
Here's the key quote...
We realize that many of our users use Mozilla Firefox as their primary browser, and we may consider adding increased Firefox support in a future version of Desktop Search.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'd assume a ".doc" file created by OpenOffice, et al, would still be searchable by the desktop engine. It also searches through text files, etc. What do you save your word processing documents in?
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:3, Insightful)
And like I said, it's the new OO.o format. (As opposed to the old staroffice format) And both openoffice.org and kword are switching to it.
Tell Google what you'd like to see, then (Score:5, Informative)
"Google Desktop Search is still under development as a beta product. We intend to add new file, email, and chat formats and browsers as Google Desktop Search evolves, and when new formats are created and used. If there's a format you'd like Google Desktop Search to be able to search, please let us know. We can't guarantee that we'll add every type that's suggested, but your suggestions will let us know what formats are important to you."
I'm going to go suggest a couple right now, and get in on the ground floor
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Interesting)
They might as well just write a bloody all-in-one operating system and get it over with.
Seriously, I'd love to see them make a linux distro. Maybe it'd suck, but with their track record I'm betting it wouldn't.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Interesting)
Man, with what they have now, if they just set up some kind of browser-based productivity
The underlying OS (win, linux, whatever) will just act as a kind of bloated BIOS. The browser being somewhat equivalent to the windowing system.
Where do I sign up ?
Thomas-
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:4, Insightful)
Google != monopoly, right now anyway.
A monopoly: when your forced to use the company's products because you are locked in and don't have much of a choice.
Google: you WANT to use the company's products because they make your life easier, work very well, and don't cost anything.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:4, Interesting)
For that matter, why does it want 500MB of disk space? Either it's going to try to index every word in every file or it's got a really inefficient storage method. Come to think of it, probably both.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Funny)
Buddy...if that isn't an attack on English, I don't know what is.
Re:The horns of a dilemma... (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm, wonder what happened.
Re:No thanks! (Score:3, Interesting)
Testing. (Score:5, Interesting)
And no update from MS any time soon (Score:5, Insightful)
So it looks like the new MS search functionality won't even make it into Longhorn? I don't see why it's so difficult... I mean if Google could accomplish it, without intimate knowledge of the OS, Office/Outlook/etc file formats, and such, why can't MS do it 5 times faster? I'm confused.
A very difficult thing but not that uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
MS is big. Really really really big. Gigantic. This means that often things are not going to be moving all that fast but worse still it allows for a real danger off management explosion. 10 progammers need 1 manager. 100 programmers need 10 manager and a manager to manage the managers. 10.000 programmers need 100 managers plus 10 managers of managers and 1 to manage all them and so on right?
WRONG. It is more like 100 programmers need about 10 technical officers, 10 project leaders, 5 project supervisors, a human resource staff, marketing, etc etc etc. To lazy to type it all out but I been in situations where software development had me the programmer reporting to well over a dozen managers all who had their own agenda. So I spend less time programming then doing meetings.
Worse a really good programmer who just spends his time developing will be quickly out of the loop and unable to find an audience for his ideas.
MS probably has several teams who could easily do this. They are just lost somewhere in the management jungle.
Why not find them? Well why should they? Management is doing okay, windows keeps selling the bonusses keep coming in. Why should management go after those creepy skilled programmers when they can deal with nicely suited once who speak their language and deliver the next point upgrade not to much past the deadline?
Lets be honest (ms apologists cover your ears) MS has never been an inovative company at the leading edge. For crying out loud, it started as a unix company after every one else already had done unix and then turned it into dos.
it added a gui only after only everyone else had done one and stole the design. it only got a somewhat 32bit OS by stealing it from IBM and the final irony (someone else pointed this out to me recently) only got that 32bit after others had already had gone to 64bit.
MS can do it 5 times faster, if it wanted. It doesn't. So far playing catchup has worked extremely well. What you don't like the MS search function? Your not that bright are you? The only reason you don't like it is because you paid MS to use it. They got your money wether you like it or not. Your confused and poor, Billy isn't.
Re:A very difficult thing but not that uncommon (Score:5, Funny)
My confused and poor Billy isn't what?
-Jesse
Re:And no update from MS any time soon (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And no update from MS any time soon (Score:4, Funny)
SELECT *.JPG FROM C:\pr0n WHERE
(HAIRY_DUDE = 0 AND
LESBIAN = 1 AND
STRAP_ON = 1 AND
ANAL = 1) OR
NAME = 'Lindsay Lohan';
WinFS is teh R0x0R!!!
Re:Testing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Testing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Gee - if only I used MS products.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gee - if only I used MS products.... (Score:3, Informative)
On first blush one thing seems troubling though: it seems to run as a pseudo-web page service via 127.0.0.1:4664; hopefully this doesn't expose an open port to the outside world?
Re:Gee - if only I used MS products.... (Score:4, Informative)
I tested this as soon as I noticed. Seems to bind itself to 127.0.0.1 only.
Re:Gee - if only I used MS products.... (Score:5, Informative)
Our software suggests that you're using a browser incompatible with Google Desktop Search. Google Desktop Search currently supports the following:
Microsoft IE 5 and newer (Download)
While we're still testing Google Desktop Search, you can also click here to use your unsupported browser, though you likely will encounter some areas that don't work as expected. You need to have Javascript enabled, regardless of the browser you use.
We hope to expand this list in the near future and announce new browsers as they become available. In the meantime, you can use IE 5 and newer.
It seems to work fine in opera (for now).
Re:Gee - if only I used MS products.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?a
Anyway, hope they someday release it for an OS other than Windows.
I Use X1 (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.x1.com/ [x1.com]
It also works with a lot more file types.
Here is part of the list [x1.com]
Holy crap its good. (Score:5, Funny)
GOOGLE DESKTOP HAS CHANGED MY LIFE!!!
i achived in the past 5 minutes more than the previous 3 weeks. It found my car keys (they were under the pile of oreily books)!!!
Holy pop culture reference! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy pop culture reference! (Score:5, Funny)
Which means you already had the girlfriend on your desktop. Finding someone sitting on the top of your desk doesn't look like a difficult task to me
Re:Holy pop culture reference! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy pop culture reference! (Score:5, Funny)
Results...
1.) Jenna.jpg
2.) Janine.jpg
3.) etc...
- Kevin
From the TOS: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:From the TOS: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From the TOS: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:From the TOS: (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should mac people be envious? (Score:5, Insightful)
might not be a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Great intention, bad Idea.
Re:might not be a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:might not be a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:might not be a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Right, guys?
Guys?
indeed, might not be a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Great intention, bad Idea.
To be fair: She knows. (Score:5, Insightful)
She KNOWS you have been downloading porn. This will just let her find the evidence.
Re:might not be a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
So the wife just opens the preferences and reads which directories were excluded from indexing...
App Support (Score:3, Interesting)
And I thought Google was supposed to be this big challenger to Microsoft???
It would be nice to see support for Trillian and other IM clients in addition to Firefox/Thunderbird. I'm hopeful that this will come to fruition, I really can't see how it wouldn't. I can understand the strategy of releasing for these apps though, because of course every computer with Windows preinstalled likely has them.
-JT
Re:App Support (Score:5, Insightful)
This makes sense: start with a larger userbase. If someone wrote a really great audio tool, that only supported OGG instead of MP3, it wouldn't take off very fast (if at all). Same thing here.
No Mac, No Thanks (Score:5, Funny)
Quicksilver for OS X (Score:4, Insightful)
Indispensible, and this is what I would hope the major MS/Apple/etc. efforts produce. Somehow I doubt it, though.
For Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been looking for something for YEARS to replace the "Excite for Web Servers" (EWS) which could easily be cadjoled into indexing your own (Linux) computer when combined with a local copy of Apache.
It was downright AWESOME, but is no longer maintained, was based on an ANCIENT version of Perl, I've been unable to get it to work on anything beyond RedHat 6.2, and rights are not available anywhere that I've found.
My home directory is 12 GB in size, and contains work going back 6 years. Making all this searchable would just be the cat's meow...
Sounds like Beagle (Score:4, Informative)
Google operating system - the next MS ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's next? The Google operating system? Are we looking at the beginnings of a next-generation Microsoft-like empire?
Re:Google operating system - the next MS ?? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, and then as you get older all the youngins will hate Google, and love some NEW company and you'll have to explain to them that Google used to be good, and Microsoft Bad, but Microsoft used to be Good and IBM bad but now IBM is good and maybe by then Microsoft will be good. Then there's the whole SCO/Caldera/SCO thing.
Searching PDFs (Score:3)
One more step toward the future (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One more step toward the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft want to own your desktop.
Google doesn't even want you to *have* a desktop. Google Desktop Search is the first step to blurring the difference between the desktop and the internet.
Review (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft's Lookout (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft bought this company which beat Google to the punch on desktop searching. Kinda funny that the letters on the main logo look very Googlish...
Request new file formats (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, what would be really nice is if new formats were supported via plugins, and if google would distribute a simple API so the open source community could contribute new plugins rather than waiting for google to implement them.
Re:Request new file formats (Score:4, Interesting)
Spotlight (Score:5, Informative)
Another difference (Score:4, Informative)
Pigeons!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Google search for Linux! (Score:3, Funny)
Gmail (Score:4, Insightful)
scary (Score:3, Insightful)
i was poking around wiht the indexes a little
(located at C:\Documents and Settings\~username~\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Desktop Search\ in xp) and i really wasn't able to ascertain anything. haha. i just want to see how 'encrypted' the aim chats are. logs are scary at work. and searchable hidden logs are even scarier.
swish-e for unix and OSX (Score:3, Informative)
wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now uhh.. they want to be on your desktop, integrating with the browser, your email, your chat clients and so on?
Am I the only one that didn't overlook that just maybe Google wants to get in on the ground floor of your computer so it can sell you shit you're only vaguely interested in? Now I know that it says it'll only send what you give it explicit permission to send (did you read that EULA carefully? I didn't, just considering the possibilities) Also says non-identifying statistics will be sent.. you can opt out of that. What statistics? The list really sorta goes on. I'm not slamming Google for doing this. I just don't trust them as far as baby pigs can hop.
I personally can't imagine me giving Google permission to browse my computer, email, and chats at will. That's some scary stuff. I can see Homeland Security rubbing their hands together and writing the "we want that info" letters now--cause we're all terrorists you know... it's only the degree of terror we're willing to inflict.
Re:wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Get rid of the tin foil hat, it seems to be restricting the blood flow to your brain.
Not bad for a first beta (Score:3, Informative)
Will install on work PC next week - curious if it follows mapped network drives as well. Maybe I'll finally be able to find the files I've been looking for over the past two years!
APIs, please (Score:3, Insightful)
I request APIs for extensions.
Google vs. Copernic (Score:3, Insightful)
Privacy Concerns (Score:4, Informative)
"Once the Google search technology is installed for free on a personal computer, it will transmit basic data daily about usage patterns. For example, it will tell the company how often Google is being used to search personal computers, how often it is used to search the Web, and how often simultaneous searches are done. Google lets users opt out of sending some usage data, but not all of it.
However, Mayer said the data collected will be aggregated so that the company knows where to focus its efforts on upgrading the search technology. She emphasized that the daily up-loading will not transmit any personal information to Google and said it is typical for major software programs that offer voluntary upgrades and fixes for bugs to capture that sort of information as a matter of routine."
This makes me hesitate to install it on my work PC, even though indexing Outlook is soooo tempting ...
Searching for porn.. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I've installed this (Score:5, Informative)
It's also what Spotlight should be...(next release of OS X, Tiger)
Re:I've installed this (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we all know company demonstrations from CEOs are done in realtime using the current alpha software.
Re:I've installed this (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, they are, usually. Didn't you see the keynote from Bill Gates where he's talking up Win98's ability to handle hardware, and he gets a nice fat BSOD. There was much laughter and clapping, as if the audience was saying, yeah now you know how we feel every day. Link here [methodshop.com]
Re:Better than X1? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better than X1? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:i almost did it... (Score:3, Insightful)
So far, its a pretty cool tool.
Re:Requires 1gig free space! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Requires 1gig free space! (Score:5, Funny)
It's just a little game of give and take (a gig)
Re:reverse engineer google (Score:4, Informative)
I'd go as far to say that this product has absolutely nothing to do with the "google engine". Just another nice app courtesy of the Google labs. The way it integrates into google.com is kind of freaky, though.