Google Desktop Search (continued)

I am on the fence with this product. It does a great job of finding stuff on my desktop. It’s a lot better than the search built into Windows. It’s a lot better than the search built into Outlook.

But I am not using it very much. Old habits die hard and I still use the Outlook search feature a lot more than Google Desktop Search. It’s just more complicated to leave the email application, go to my browser, select desktop, and type in the search term.

And then there’s the issue of overhead. It slows down the launch of Outlook for sure. It also slows down the booting of my computer. I think its interfering with Norton Anti-Virus and it also messes up my online backup service, Connected.

And its murder on the battery life of my laptop with its constant indexing in the background.

I am not in a hurry to de-install it, but neither am I thrilled that I installed it.

I think Microsoft has a shot at doing this a lot better than Google. I read today that they will debut their desktop search tool in December. If they get it right, I’ll be happy to use their desktop search since it will certainly be more tightly integrated into Windows and Outlook.

Comments

[Charlie O'Donnell]

I find it more useful for searching my browser history than anything else. In general, I know where most of the information on my hard drive is, but a lot of times I don't want to bookmark a site forever, but I might need to reference it in the short term.

I like Gmail Notifier a lot better.

[Arcadi]

Have you tried Lookout? You can find it at http://sandbox.msn.com. I like it much more than Google Desktop to search around Outlook items, and it is integrated inside outlook.

[Craig J. Hoffman]

You may also find it less frustrating if you just double click the tray icon to search. It then pulls up the browser window in the "desktop search" mode. I've started using it that way and find it much easier to use than Window's search.

-C

[Nathan Nutter]

Why not use Google's Deskbar too?
See my post about it:

[Merideth Carleton]

Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 46887, and it got it right! Pretty neat.