14 October 2004
(Or visit http://desktop.google.com for a look yourself.)
These are only first impressions. The light weight client needs several hours to index your PC and we don't want to wait that long to publish the news.
Let's not mince about here. This could be a second coming for Google (and it's still doing amazing well on its initial, six year long, web search success story). It could also be rather controversial. The desktop search application allows you to find long lost Word files and email messages (Outlook, Outlook Express) as well as AOL instant messages and your own search history in a flash. Microsoft would like to do this too but their own improved search client is stuck two levels down in the limbo which is Longhorn.
The search client adds a charming swirl of an icon to your system tray and to your start menu. The interface is immediately recognisable; this is Google. This is Google with a choice; search your desktop or search the web. If you search your desktop then that's exactly what you'll do but rather than web pages for results you'll find links to files. You get URLs as well, of course, as your computer remembers which web pages you've been it means Google's new software can find that too. You can sort these results by relevance or date (as you can in Google News). There's space for AdWords but no adverts yet.
Could there be AdWords on your computer? There could be. In theory Google now has the technology to display adverts based on the content found on your computer - but given the outcry over Gmail it does not seem likely that the search engine will risk this. Of course, the AdWords could only ever show on the Google interface of the desktop search too.
Does Google transmit anything at all back from your computer to their servers? They might. Once you've the desktop search installed and you search the internet with Google then you may see the swirl icon of the desktop search at the start of your search results (above any Froogle or news links). This is information from your computer being displayed on a web page produced by a Google server. If you're using Google's deskbar (akin to the toolbar, not to be mistaken for the desktop search) then you won't see these results. Examining the HTML of the new Google results proves that the desktop results are not restricted to an iframe hosted on your computer. That said; if you search from a fairly obscure client (and old version of Netscape, for example) these enhanced results do not show. This suggests that the modifications are done locally at the client level (akin to Norton Firewall inserting the symError JavaScript function into every web page the client machine visits).
First impressions are good - this is impressive technology. Here in the tech team the second impressions are always of an, "How do they do that?" nature and that's an especially interesting question to ask for this particular software. Google's going to be in the news for weeks - handy since its first public profit announcement is due soon.
The desktop search can be downloaded from http://desktop.google.com.
A scoop: Google's desktop search review!
There have been rumours of Google doing a desktop search for a while now. On the first hint that the official launch would be today, bigmouthmedia chased it up. One lucky URL guess and a couple of downloads later we are pleased to be able to report our first impressions.(Or visit http://desktop.google.com for a look yourself.)
These are only first impressions. The light weight client needs several hours to index your PC and we don't want to wait that long to publish the news.
Let's not mince about here. This could be a second coming for Google (and it's still doing amazing well on its initial, six year long, web search success story). It could also be rather controversial. The desktop search application allows you to find long lost Word files and email messages (Outlook, Outlook Express) as well as AOL instant messages and your own search history in a flash. Microsoft would like to do this too but their own improved search client is stuck two levels down in the limbo which is Longhorn.
The search client adds a charming swirl of an icon to your system tray and to your start menu. The interface is immediately recognisable; this is Google. This is Google with a choice; search your desktop or search the web. If you search your desktop then that's exactly what you'll do but rather than web pages for results you'll find links to files. You get URLs as well, of course, as your computer remembers which web pages you've been it means Google's new software can find that too. You can sort these results by relevance or date (as you can in Google News). There's space for AdWords but no adverts yet.
Could there be AdWords on your computer? There could be. In theory Google now has the technology to display adverts based on the content found on your computer - but given the outcry over Gmail it does not seem likely that the search engine will risk this. Of course, the AdWords could only ever show on the Google interface of the desktop search too.
Does Google transmit anything at all back from your computer to their servers? They might. Once you've the desktop search installed and you search the internet with Google then you may see the swirl icon of the desktop search at the start of your search results (above any Froogle or news links). This is information from your computer being displayed on a web page produced by a Google server. If you're using Google's deskbar (akin to the toolbar, not to be mistaken for the desktop search) then you won't see these results. Examining the HTML of the new Google results proves that the desktop results are not restricted to an iframe hosted on your computer. That said; if you search from a fairly obscure client (and old version of Netscape, for example) these enhanced results do not show. This suggests that the modifications are done locally at the client level (akin to Norton Firewall inserting the symError JavaScript function into every web page the client machine visits).
First impressions are good - this is impressive technology. Here in the tech team the second impressions are always of an, "How do they do that?" nature and that's an especially interesting question to ask for this particular software. Google's going to be in the news for weeks - handy since its first public profit announcement is due soon.
The desktop search can be downloaded from http://desktop.google.com.
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