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Google Businesses Announcements Software The Internet IT

Google Releases GDS 2.0 789

Posted by Hemos from the transmorigying-data-services dept.
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."
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Google Releases GDS 2.0 More

Google Releases GDS 2.0

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  • as the need for a Firefox or IE is almost eliminated...

    I'm not really sure who uses Google Desktop; I certainly don't. I had the last version for about a week, and then I got bored with it. This is true for about 90% of the things I find online. Plus, what Google is doing now is starting to be the same thing Microsoft has been doing for the last few years: trying to get their hands into everything.

    It's only a matter of time and probable lawsuits before the geek community starts to have a little falling
  • When the client is hosted on a Windows platform, it still a bad idea...

  • And most important of all (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jarlsberg ( 643324 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:46AM (#13370685) Journal
    It finally supports indexing of files from network shares natively. :)

  • Privacy Issues (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AlexTheBeast ( 809587 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:46AM (#13370689)
    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. [boingboing.net] 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 [tech-recipes.com].

    Is our privacy now worth more than free software?

    (Tin-foil hat mode off)

    • Re:Privacy Issues (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jayloden ( 806185 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @12:07PM (#13372441)
      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 (Score:4, Informative)

      by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) * <slashdotNO@SPAMstefanco.com> on Monday August 22, 2005 @02:31PM (#13373454) Homepage Journal
      It wasn't too long ago that links on google.com went straight to the link... not back through the google servers...

      This isn't new, and Yahoo does it also [yahoo.com].

      I remember playing with these rewritten links in 2001 for some SEO projects. Back in 1999, many of the links in Google appeared in the status bar as "http://www.google.com/url?url=http%3A//boingboing .net", so it was pretty obvious what they were doing.

      This is how the big search engines determine which links are most popular.

      The Holy Grail of Direct Marketing is to personalize advertisements efficiently. This is Google's whole business model.

      To do this they collect information from the visitors, deposit the information in a huge database, analyze the data and then programatically determine which advertisements will be most effective based on the target audience.

  • No XP64 (Score:3, Informative)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <jason.nashNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:47AM (#13370691)
    It won't install on XP 64-bit edition.

  • Bleh! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Agret ( 752467 ) <alias.zero2097@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:49AM (#13370702) Homepage Journal
    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.

    Well it's a nice addition to the system but I don't think I'll replace Firefox with it. It'll take awhile for them to port extensions to the Google Desktop thing and even still it's not cross platform.

    • Re:Bleh! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ryanov ( 193048 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @01:48PM (#13373090)
      And how is it a replacement? You need a browser in order to render the pages you find. Even the config page needs a browser. I guess it'd be a good way to eliminate the need, unless of course I wanted to, y'know, browse the web.

  • Dashboard (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sedyn ( 880034 )
    Does the functionality of this program remind anyone else of dashboard for OSX?

    Speaking of, widgets seem to be all the rage at the moment. Do they have any standards (other than program APIs), for say, the sake of portibility? Or would that be pointless?

    I ask that because there seems to be a lot of duplication of functions (such as local weather) between various applications.
  • I find no use for this tool. I would like to try it because it looks nice, but I tried v.1 and I had nothing to search for. Really, if you keep stuff well organised in a few folders I don't think you'll ever need to search for anything.
  • I don't know what the bloggers the submitter referred to are smoking. You still need a browser to get any information past the basic stuff you see on Google's sidebar.

  • Hmm, really? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MaestroSartori ( 146297 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:51AM (#13370718) Homepage
    "...the need for a Firefox or IE is almost eliminated..."

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

  • Google Digital Assistant (Score:4, Funny)

    by simp ( 25997 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:51AM (#13370720)
    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.

  • Not true (Score:2, Funny)

    by geekdreams ( 881813 )
    Their browser will come bundled with their operating system.

  • Windows Only? (Score:3, Informative)

    by byronne ( 47527 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:52AM (#13370728) Homepage
    Since this sounds so intriguing I thought I'd take a quick look-see. Go to the downloads and what do I see? "Currently available for Windows computers only"

    I hope some of their new-found wealth goes toward developing some of these nifty tools for other platforms (Fedora? BSD? MAC?)...
  • has anyone had any experience with version 1. this sounds like it could be ok.

  • Thunderbird mail! (Score:5, Informative)

    by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:53AM (#13370735) Homepage Journal
    I've been waiting for it to index Thunderbird mail, because Thunderbird's search is pretty slow. It claims to do that now. Yay!
  • ...Before Google does use the Gecko rendering engine developed by the Mozilla Foundation and turn GDS into a full-blown web browser. They are almost there doing one with GDS 2.0 anyway.

  • Maybe obvious.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rwven ( 663186 )
    Sounds (again) like Google is planning on getting into the browser/mail-client business. I think a new windows Shell developed by Google would be a nice hit too...but i wouldnt put too much hope in that idea coming through...
  • In a time when the Open Source community and movement as a whole are gathering steam, I find it counterproductive for Google to release another competing browser. Firefox being open source, and being pretty darned good, is probably the best opponent to the dominance of IE. Google would be better supporting an ongoing OSS movement like the one Firefox has created in a short span of time. The brainpower of Google and their ability to create applications that are simple yet advanced would lend itself greatly t
  • Did you mean Transmogrifier [wikipedia.org] ?

    Google to the rescue, on a Google story...recursion imminent...

    GTRacer
    - Hobbes rocks

  • "All your indexable information are belong to us"
          -Larry

  • Google - windows only? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yitzhak ( 720512 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @08:56AM (#13370760) Homepage
    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.
  • ...write a "fix Slashdot's broken posting?" sidebar as well? :)
  • Did you mean Transmogrifying? [google.com]
  • I want to be able to search more than one lotus notes Databases, if that's not too much to ask.

    The plugin we have will only search one, usually the mail file..
    I'd like it to search my 5 archive files also.

    Thank you.

  • The Wrong Direction (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:30AM (#13370797) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • re: overexposure (Score:3, Interesting)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )
      I tend to agree with your basic premise that a toolbar might not really be the ideal direction for Google - at least, if you want to see them remain known for their stark, but useful/powerful web pages.

      But my main issue with toolbars are the fact that by their nature, they're gaudy "OS hacks". In essense, every time you see a "toolbar" on a system, it's a 3rd. party "after the fact" workaround for a perceived lack/failing of the OS itself.

      A "system utility", "accessory" or "application", by contrast, would

  • Is it going to index my Outlook mail on Exchange? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HawkinsD ( 267367 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:30AM (#13370799)
    I can't tell from my cursory review of the web page... So I'll ask here: The Google Desktop Search engine claims to index my "Outlook EMail." What does this mean? Does it contain an Exchange client? Is it going to sift through all my eleventy-million e-mails on my company's Exchange server?

    If so: is this a good idea? What will my Exchange administrator think about this? What if lots of us start doing this? Exchange servers are notoriously flaky.

    I would sure love to have a quick way to search for the butt-covering e-mail that I sent to Finster a year ago.
  • After downloading and installing this version I can not find out which version I have installed now. The About box does't show anything.
  • But I use hotmail you insensitive clod!
  • Sign of the exhaustion of /.'ers with Googledot?

    S

  • Something for a corporate environment? (Score:5, Informative)

    by mr i want to go home ( 610257 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:31AM (#13370827)
    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...

  • Data being passed back to Google? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by passionplay ( 607862 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:32AM (#13370834)
    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.
  • Did you mean ? [wikipedia.org]

    A Google reference in a Google story...recursion imminent...

    (And what happened to my original post? It never showed up here or in my history. Odd...)

    GTracer
    - Hobbes rocks

  • Don't you need a web browser to well... browse/view content that is indexed by Google Desktop?

  • First they take over the desktop (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Coming soon, Google Earth.. oh wait.
  • I'm trying to push the adoption of GDS here to help us wade through the unmanageable morass of emails and documents that accumulate in our interaction with customers. IT mandated that it was a security risk because it indexed our local information and sent it off to Google. I tried to tell them that it really did not do that, but they have already branded it and that is that. Help! I need some reliable references to bolster my position.

  • Now that Google Desktop does more than just searching, I wonder how long it takes before Google attempts conquering Mac OS X by having Google Desktop integrate with Spotlight! :D Or is that a silly thought? Hmmm.
  • 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.

    Windows only???!! WTF!

  • .. let alone any more useful than Gdesklets [gnomedesktop.org] or Gkrellm [dslextreme.com]. For one these seem far more customiseable/extensible/useful in that they converge local system state (top) with social state (email/IM) with world state (news/RSS). I guess win32 users are missing out.
  • come on Google... get it together for us... not to mention the fact that you're also ignoring a large chunk of windows users who're perfectly happy with 98SE or horror of horrors NT (yup, that's what I've got at work)
  • "Google Desktop 12.0 now includes tigter Gmail tie-ins, as well as tie-ins to Google Maps, Blogger, RSS 3.0, and a new replacement kernel for Windows."

    I love how Google doesn't take over by force or monopoly - it just releases products that intice people, and quietly, those products replace the need for other applications which might be considered... you know... competition.
  • Sure, these guys turn out some amazing technology...

    Yes, they have the whole "do no evil" thing...

    Ok, they run their whole setup on Linux...

    Major karma points for the Google SOC project...

    BUT, DAMN IT! I WANT GOOGLE EARTH FOR LINUX!

    Not to mention, Google Desktop and the whole gamut of their desktop offerings. Someone at Google needs to step up and start making this stuff available to the Free desktops.

    !!And to think that Google Earth was made with Qt!!

  • no comments?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mE123 ( 140419 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:40AM (#13370923) Homepage
    This story has been here for an hour and still no comments??

    Slashdot must be broken, because I know people aren't reading the article

    • MOD PARENT UP! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jkrise ( 535370 )
      Why is this funny? That's 1 user who's got the guts to post his opinion about social engineering going on in this site, and it gets modded funny! Read my first journal on this subject and mod the parent up so it gets seen prominently.

      Cheers
  • With these sidebar plugins it looks like Google are taking a stab against Microsoft Outlook.

    Outlook Email = Gmail
    Outlook Tasks = Todo Plugin
    Outlook Calendar = Clock Plugin?


    I for one would love to have my Outlook at work accessible over the web.
  • "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."

    So the need for a web browser is being eliminated by a web browser .
    Personally i prefer each of my apps to do a specific task or group of tasks
  • Do you mean Transmogrifying? [google.com]
  • I'd hope to see the whole browser...
  • If google were to come up with their own IM client and protocol then this could be what will give them the big boost in numbers (kids, teens, young adults primarily) to switch to all of their products (gmail, desktop search, etc) because Microsoft is keeping everyone at hotmail since MSN Messenger is tied into it.

    Until this occurs the vast majority of the younger generation will still be stuck in the MS world (at least in Canada, maybe AIM or Yahoo in the US?).

    Maybe a highly intuitive integrated VoIP soluti
  • Will it run on Linux? Seriously, that would be nice.
  • Is that like a Debian package format or something? Anyone have a link to an RPM?
  • The only people who would want this are those users who like to clutter up their system tray with more bullshit. And is there an OS in the world that doesn't already come with a clock?! A clock plug-in! Now I've heard everything.
  • Yes, I know it's all completely optional, but the default settings the Grandma's and random people will use mine an extreme amount of data. And the little side bar with "automatic rss feeds" and what not seems even more intrusive then ever before.
  • I am amazed!

  • Mac version (Score:5, Funny)

    by jcostantino ( 585892 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:49AM (#13371041) Homepage
    Ok, they have 4 billion dollars, where the fuck is the Mac version?
  • While Google is making steps forward, slashdot is making steps backwards...

  • I've been hitting the "reload" button every half minute or so on these comments for a looonng time (in slashdot years) and I haven't seen any comments posted as yet? WTF??

  • I think i am one of those people who is becoming infomation overloaded, i am losing the patience to read a book or watch tv because they are too slow for me. This sidebar is awesome, I have been waiting for an rss agregator (like the one in the new mac OS) for sometime. The only problem is my workrate will plumet now.

    As for google becoming too powerful, nah, you will always have geeks and users, and the geeks will always find away round the nasty stuff. Also maybe a third popular browser would finally fo
  • 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

    I haven't tried it yet, but presumably GDS2 just uses the IE engine in the same way all these other Windows apps with a built in browser do?
  • I wouldn't call it a browser replacement anymore than I would call a pizza delivery a replacement for my car. It just puts a lot of things that you would normally use a browser for in an easily accessible location. I would imagine that you still have to have a browser if you want more info on the RSS feeds/weather/whatever.

  • > Google Desktop. Many new features are introduced including improved Outlook filtering, Gmail indexing,

    Ok. So it still says "Our one trick pony is our search". And still no thunderbird indexing ?. I've been saved by Bloomba once because it indexed my Imap cache of my personal mail.

    > a new Sidebar which displays RSS feeds, a Gmail inbox, news, scratch pad and more.

    How original .. I wonder if all these were google innovations or just re-acquired tools pushed into one window (like my firefo

  • The need for a browser is hardly eliminated by this as the article suggests. What about the billions of websites that are not owned by Google? Sure, you could search Google for the content, but you'd still need a browser to actually view it.
  • Google tool watches as you work [bbc.co.uk].

    They can count me out. I'll stick with 'find' and 'grep' and 'strings'.

  • Sidebars (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sethadam1 ( 530629 ) * <ascheinberg&gmail,com> on Monday August 22, 2005 @09:58AM (#13371141) Homepage
    I love the idea of sidebars, but honestly, even on my 1280x1024, it feels like such a waste of space. Anyone else agree on this?
  • I've never used Google Desktop, but could you please clarify how Google Desktop is integrated with gmail? As the first 2 things it says in the paragraph above are related to mail, and apparently not about the dekstop
  • Has anyone else found that this breaks Mozzilla? and is that why its so quite round here at the moment?
  • ...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.

    I know it says "almost" but it's more like "not."

    You can't actually view webpages with it.
  • How refreshing, slashdot stories and no comments! Whats left? After all, we dont RTFA
  • from the transmorigying-data-services dept.?
    dictionary.com says that's not a word, google says, "did you mean 'transmorgifying'?" and returns lots of results with it spelled that way.
    However if you plug "transmorgifying" back into dictionary.com, it is not a word, either! It in turn sugggests "Did you mean transmogrifying?" which is the correct spelling. To me this implies that Google has found more examples of the incorrect spelling than the correct! (Although not as grotesquely misspelled as Hemos' spelli
  • Great.. doesn't work in x64 Edition. Come on Google, get with the times!

  • Cool (Score:2)

    by Freexe ( 717562 )
    Its got loads of extensions and lots of them are actually useful, I've defiantly got room for this on my second monitor!
  • I'd rather see it the other way around. Can Google can make that desktop run thru a browser, so it is totally and tranparently transportable? (woohoo! alliteration!)

    No, I don't mean running VNC back to my desktop PC, either.

      -Charles
  • Can anyone comment on the size of the index's with GDS2? On my 40GB laptop with GDS1 the index's took up 1GB of space, which was not apparant till I dug through my Application Data or Local Data or whatever folder that stuff goes in.

    I quickly deleted GDS after that, the disk space was worth more to me.
  • Wow, looking at Google's cached snapshot of desktop.google.com, it looks like version 1 never made it out of beta. Is that the first time a software company has gone from beta 1 straight to beta 2?

    Wacky. (Well, on a positive note, they didn't need to change the logo.)

  • Is something wrong with slashdot's comments posting? This story's been out for 40 min and no comments yet?
  • That is, of course, unless you need to go to a website. No mention of any web browsing of normal sites on the internet, but hey... who nees that anyway, right?
  • 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

    Well, if a [i]blogger[/i] said it then it must be true. ;)
  • That is, of course, unless you need to go to a website, I suppose. I also would not be surprised if this software relies on the rendering engine of one of the browsers.

  • It still sits in the middle of your TCP stack (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joshrulzzatwork ( 758329 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @10:17AM (#13371366)
    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 [google.com]), 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.com]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.

  • Spyware (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @10:49AM (#13371745) Homepage Journal
    and you'll all be sorry!

    Trust me on this one, boys. You'll be like Mr. Buttle in no more than ten-years time, wondering, "Why'd they get me? I never did anything wrong..."

    Google is not cool, Google is not your "friend." Google is the NSA.

  • It was called Google Desktop "search" .... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gopal.V ( 532678 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @11:31AM (#13372195) Homepage Journal
    > Google Desktop. Many new features are introduced including improved Outlook filtering, Gmail indexing,

    Ok. So it still says "Our one trick pony is our search". And still no thunderbird indexing ?. I've been saved by Bloomba once because it indexed my Imap cache of my personal mail.

    > a new Sidebar which displays RSS feeds, a Gmail inbox, news, scratch pad and more.

    How original .. I wonder if all these were google innovations or just re-acquired tools pushed into one window (like my firefox side-bar which acts as an RSS window, Javascript console and DOM inspector together). And what's a scratch pad, some kind of notepad in a window ?.

    > 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.

    If it has Gecko or MSHTML inside and is web enabled, the lack of an addressbar does not make it any less of a browser. I slowly see an AOL'ish trend of google to draw customers into their all you need in one window approach which worked so well for AOL for many years. I don't like that kind of lock-in by anybody.

    You know why I don't install Google toolbar, web-accelerator or Yahoo ! companions ?. I grew up in a web where everything was addressed and could be accessed by me with almost any capable tool in the market - these guys are trying to dictate tools for me according to their content marketing. They already know which websites I hit (Ads), what I look for (search), what I buy (froogle), whom I mail (gmail) and now they want in on the Desktop too. I don't want them to be the know-all spooks.
    • You know why I don't install Google toolbar, web-accelerator or Yahoo ! companions ?. I grew up in a web where everything was addressed and could be accessed by me with almost any capable tool in the market - these guys are trying to dictate tools for me according to their content marketing. They already know which websites I hit (Ads), what I look for (search), what I buy (froogle), whom I mail (gmail) and now they want in on the Desktop too. I don't want them to be the know-all spooks.

      I don't know why you

  • How long before... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @11:34AM (#13372220) Journal
    Google Linux? Rather than writing plug-ins for the most popular Desktop OS, it'd be nice if Google released a complete desktop OS - with plug-ins / replacements for Outlook and Office. -

  • Include a calendar (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fluor2 ( 242824 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @11:44AM (#13372308)
    Dear Google. Include a calendar, and I can finally get rid of this sh*t called Outlook.

  • RSS w/o user intervention (Score:3, Interesting)

    by _Shorty-dammit ( 555739 ) on Monday August 22, 2005 @02:08PM (#13373235)
    actually, according to their docs, this new version gives users RSS feeds without the user even having to know wtf RSS is. It automatically sets the stuff up for you. So it isn't just another RSS feed reader, the feature sounds like it'd be rather handy and I don't know of any other doing this.

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