Google Launches Surprise Release of Desktop Search

Posted Oct 14th 2004 3:34PM by Brad Hill

Google desktop search logo Perhaps motivated by groundbreaking work at Copernic and Blinkx, and without question hoping to gain first-mover advantage over Microsoft, Google has released its beta Desktop Search tool. Though the new feature (it cannot properly be called a "program," as I describe below) is in beta, today represents a confident and smoothly operating release. Desktop Search embeds on the Google home page for those who have installed it (see the graphic below), on equal footing with Web, Image, News, and Froogle search.

google home page with desktop The download is quick and easy. The installer avoids requesting that the user shut down running applications—a request universally ignored—and forthrightly shuts 'em down itself. (Or tries; on my test machine it could not shut down Outlook Express for some reason.) Then Google gets to work indexing your hard drive. This first crawl is a daunting task in most large-capacity computers, and Google warns that it could take several hours. The hard-drive crawl is accomplished in the background, during your computer's idle cycles. The process does not interfere with normal computing. Searches may be initiated during the indexing process, and Google warns that they are incomplete until the indexing is finished.

After the computer is crawled and the index built, Desktop Search operates like many other Google searches—from the Google site. In this manner, desktop results are not integrated into Web results as PageRanked items; however the default setting (which can be turned off) shows the top two Desktop results above Web results when conducting a Web search, with a link to see the rest. In this way, Desktop results look much like Google News or Froogle results that are sometimes placed atop Web listings.

Contrary to some reports, Desktop Search does indeed index graphic and music files—by filename. There is no hashing of media files, and I don't think anyone expected that. But if files are named accurately, finding graphics, music, and movies is just as easy as finding Word files. Furthermore, you may use the filetype: operator to focus on file formats such as MP3. As to Gmail integration—that might and might not be added in the future. In the meantime, Gmail does, of course, utilize its own search engine.

Misinformation is flying as everyone gets acquainted with Desktop Search. this, for example, from Search Engine News:

"At the moment, only files on your primary hard drive (the C: drive for most people) are indexed. Those on additional hard drives won't be searchable."

Untrue, happily. Not only did Google easily index my partitions (C through G), but it easily absorbed my media files on the I drive—an external USB hard drive where I keep my music and movies.

The real question is this: When will Google start incorporating AdWords into Desktop results? And what will the privacy alarmists have to say about that?

THE UPSHOT: Google Desktop Search blows Windows file-searching out of the water and high up on the sand where it lies gasping for life like a beached whale. I cannot imagine a single person who would not prefer Google's system to the Windows system. And that statement, if remotely true, marks a gigantic milestone for Google and its centrality in the computing lives of most people.

Reader Comments

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1. So I wrote the "misinformation," except it wasn't. Unlike your experience, the tool did not index my additional drives. Google also specifically said that it wouldn't, as well.

Having said this, it's interesting to hear you had success with it doing what they say it wouldn't :)

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Danny Sullivan

2. I set up Google Desktop Search on my barely used Windows computer last night. I have one hard drive divided into three partitions: C, D, and E. It completely indexed all three.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by David Hammond

3. Sorry about the "misinformation" remark. I've put out plenty of correctibles myself. Interesting to hear that multi-drive indeixing didn't work on your machine. Clearly, experiences with this issue and others differ.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brad Hill

4. it sounds like, with the exception of your external usb drive you and Danny are talking about different things.

For instance, you mention that you have one drive partitioned into three "drives" where as he may actually have several actual drives mounted.

Now, I know it shouldn't matter - and your usb drive seems to prove the point - but maybe it won't index more than on drive on the bus.. the usb drive is a differnt animal, since it connects via usb.

so to finally end this rambling post.. perhaps the google desktop search will only index the first drive DEVICE on a bus - and thus it does exactly what both of you are saying.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Bill

5. I don't think I want Google crawling around my hard drive, period.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Dark Wizard

6. I commend Google on building an easy-to-use, easy-to-install local search system. The interface is quite nice and it's very unintrusive to use. It's also nice to be able to view the "cached" text version of a word document; its much faster than having to open the entire document in order to quickly assess whether the document is what you're looking for.

However, I've used Lookout for a long time (it's a plug-in to Outlook and can be downloaded here: http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/download.html). and I still prefer it to Google's desktop search.

Lookout provides much better control over what gets indexed and how frequently. A notable shortcoming of Google's indexer is that it doesn't have fine-grained control or the ability to index certain content that is very important to me. For example, Lookout can index PDFs, other text-based files that have other extensions (such as php or asp source code files, etc.), and my Microsoft OneNote and Tranglos Keynote files. Google can't. Therefore, when I'm searching for notes, articles in PDF format and emails on a topic, I get a more exhaustive set of results

Also, Lookout's relevance ranking system for matches seems to work better than Google's and I am able to sort results not only by date, relevance or file type, but also by e-mail sender.

I'm certain, however, that these are issues that Google will be able to overcome.

At that point, I believe those users who are most interested in searching their email will prefer Lookout because it is integrated with Outlook. On the other hand, Googlephiles and people who more frequently search for files will gravitate towards Google Desktop Search.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Martel

7. Hm, this is good info. I am currently using Blinkx however for my desktop searching. One thing I really like about Blinkx is that it has smart folders, . I have figured outhat you can create a folder on anything and Blinkx will update it automatically with links from the internet, tv, etc. as well as all of your files. Searching is =easy, seeing as though it searches for you, while you do whatever else you need too.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Matt

8. Hm, this is good info. I am currently using Blinkx however for my desktop searching. One thing I really like about Blinkx is that it has smart folders, . I have figured outhat you can create a folder on anything and Blinkx will update it automatically with links from the internet, tv, etc. as well as all of your files. Searching iseasy, seeing as though it searches for you, while you do whatever else you need too.

Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Matt

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