In two minds about Google Desktop

I've been using Google Desktop since it came out a few weeks ago. But I'm not convinced that it's all it's cracked up to be.

There's a great deal to like about it. It's extremely simple and easy to use: if you use Google for web searches, then you'll know how to use it on your desktop - type in the key words, click and off you go. I like the way it gives you the choice of searching on your own PC or on the web.

And if you do a web search, either through the Desktop interface or through the usual web dialog, it will also present search results of the items you looked for that are on your own PC. So it's an integrated search, web and desktop, which helps you focus on what you're looking for rather than where it is.

I think the best comparison is with the search capability within Windows XP rather than with other search tools such as Copernic which I've used on and off for some years (I've started trying out Copernic Desktop Search, but not spent any time with it yet). Google Desktop is pretty clear on what it can do and what it cannot, so the comparison with XP's search is probably the most valid. In which case, it is way ahead of XP's search in ease of use.

For me, the two biggest downsides to Google Desktop are that it doesn't index and make searchable every single type of file on your computer, only certain types; and it only produces search results of cached pages from your browser usage if you browse with Internet Explorer (I use Firefox). Again, though, none of this is a surprise as Google makes it very clear up front what the program will do and what it won't.

There's also a niggling feeling that, somehow, it's interfering with or affecting other applications on my PC. Nothing I can put my finger on. But some things seem a lot slower (Outlook loading, for one) and odd things have happened (like Feed Demon behaving in unexpected ways) since I installed Google Desktop.

So what's my conclusion? Well, I'm certainly not in any hurry to uninstall it, in spite of the oddities going on. Neither am I in any hurry to use only Google Desktop. Plus, it is beta software (but what isn't these days?).

This is definitely a consumer (user) market right now. New and evolutionary search tools around the corner, from Microsoft among others. Let's see what emerges.