You can save and find files in your computer hard drive more easily by using a desktop search engine. Most of the good ones are free, do not take up too much space, can search hundreds of different document types (video, photographs, music, contacts, e-mails, to name a few) and works with any computer system. This article gives a brief overview of desktop search (DTS) engines available. Try one out for free and simplify your life.
Finding Files a Problem?
Searching for a file in your computer and not finding it, or wasting minutes
or hours locating it, can be stressful and frustrating.
Stress-free saving and fast retrieval of files has challenged computer
software designers since the PC era dawned in the 1980s. Do you still remember
when a floppy disk’s capacity of a few hundred thousand bytes fixed the limit
of how many files we saved? Then as SUV-capacity hard drives came, the amount
of files we saved grew arithmetically until Internet use exploded in the 1990s.
Up to that point, the user-friendly drag-and-click folder system to manage
files was good enough. With a few mouse clicks, we learned to use icons and commands
to drag and save files. Folders organized logically made finding files easy.
The system worked until the new millennium, when the Web transformed the
computer into a giant storehouse of contacts, photographs, e-mails, music,
videos, and all kinds of documents.
The staggering volume of saved digital files made the drag and click,
file-and-folder system cumbersome, and searching for files started taking
longer. What complicated matters is the way several programs – for e-mail,
photo albums, contacts, and calendars – stored data. Getting the information
you need meant having to run separate programs, each with its own search
commands.
The Answer’s Here!
Google in 1998 made web search so fast that with a high-speed Internet
connection, finding information in the Web was faster than looking for files in
your hard drive. Using the same technology that mapped the Internet’s billions
of pages, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN developed search engines to find files in
your computer.
Desktop search, or DTS, engines help you find the information you need by
indexing your hard drive and make searching for files fast and easy. Just type
in a keyword and any file, of any type, with that information is found with
robot-like efficiency.
Helping you find files faster is just one way DTS will simplify your life.
On top of that:
No need to delete files. As
hard drives get bigger and prices go down, you can save and store as much
information as you want.
No need to organize your hard
drive into folders. DTS engines can find your files faster than you can
navigate through folders using the old drag-and-click system.
No need to memorize file
names. All you need is a keyword inside the file you are looking for, and
the DTS engine finds all the files in your drive with that word. Some DTS
engines can even search other computers in a network.
You've Got Choice!
Several DTS engines are available, most of them free, and with features that
are attractive to different sets of users. Here are fourteen of the most
popular, classified according to four criteria: free, not free, those for the
Apple Mac, and a few less popular ones that are worth checking out.
Which one you choose depends on:
What computer system do you
have. Some DTS engines work only with the latest hardware, so better find
out if your computer system can take it. You also need at least 128MB RAM
and enough hard disk space for indexed files.
Documents you work with,
store in your hard drive, and that you want to search. Some DTS engines
cannot search mp3, Acrobat, and Outlook e-mail formats.
Your personal taste, how you
like the look and feel.
7 Desktop Search Engines for Free
Ask Jeeves Desktop Search 1.7 Beta
Small (size: 750KB) and fast, powerful enough to search your hard drive for
some Windows-based files, e-mails and text, image, music and video files. You
can choose either fast or gradual indexing. You can decide how much of the hard
disk you want indexed and how much processor power to use. Software is easy to
understand, simple, and refined. Shows search results in a preview panel that
can play Windows Media Player so you can listen to or watch the file. It cannot
open files like Excel and PowerPoint, and cannot search Web pages you have
browsed. Although limited, this search engine has potential if developers work
on upgrades. Needs Windows 2000 or XP operating system. Software is free.
Copernic Desktop Search 1.5 Beta
Copernic is intuitive, easy to use, and the latest version supports common
browser, e-mail, and document formats. Can search your browser history (which
creates privacy problems), favorites, and contacts, and builds a separate
database in the background as you work, adding new files to the database as you
save them on your hard disk. This dynamic indexing feature makes retrieving
files faster. There is a preview pane so you do not have to open a file to see
if it is what you are looking for. When installed, a toolbar appears on your
desktop where you can type keywords. Its “search as you type” feature begins
searching even before you finish typing the word. A drawback is that it only
supports the “alltheweb.com” web search within the application, which is not as
popular as Google or Yahoo! It runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP and
Internet Explorer 5.0 or later. The file is 2.7MB and its index database does
not occupy too much space. You can download the software free.
Google Desktop 2.0 Beta
Google Desktop Search presents your desktop search results in your browser
the way Google displays web search results. Speed is one of its features, and
anyone familiar with Google will find it easy to operate. It supports all
browser, e-mail, and document formats. The latest version can search Contacts,
Tasks, Calendar, Notes, and Journal, even IM chat logs. Continuous updating of
database takes place when a file is changed. A nifty desktop feature called a
Sidebar shows if you have e-mail (including G-mail, an improvement on Version
1.0), weather and financial information, personalized news and RSS/Atom feeds.
Sidebar is intuitively customized and personalized. Its new feature, Quick
Find, launches applications that help you see search results as you type
without having to open a browser. A floating search box allows you to type
while working on other applications. Desktop Search is free,
feature-packed, small (1.3MB), runs only on Windows 2000 or XP, and can be
downloaded from the website.
HotBot Desktop Beta
HotBot is very compact and has unique features. It is a toolbar-based
desktop search tool and displays the search output in the browser’s left pane,
which displays the Favorite and History links. There is also a deskbar version,
but it is confusing since it is inconsistent with the toolbar. Besides,
configuration is text file based, takes time to learn and memorize, and is
therefore not user-friendly. Search results are automatically saved as HTML
files, resulting in security concerns. Works with Windows 95 and up. You can
download HotBot free.
MSN Toolbar Suite 2.0
Beta
MSN Toolbar Suite is similar to Google Desktop in look and feel and works well
with all Microsoft products. User-friendly, but quite limited; to search PDF
files, you need to download iFilter, a free add-in tool. Fast and efficient,
includes a PopUp Blocker, Auto Form Fill, and Highlighter that colors relevant
keywords in searched documents. Performs well in search accuracy; a Shortcut
keyword feature lets users associate a keyword with specific files. Works only
with Windows XP, Server 2003, or 2000 and needs Microsoft Internet Explorer
5.01 or later. Available free.
X-friend Beta 0.2.1
X-friend is a Java-based tool that functions as a desktop search engine. It
can search twenty different file types only, and is quite limited. Main feature
is its peer-to-peer (P2P) capability that allows computers with x-friend
installed to share data over the Internet, which means you can search and
download several files from other computers after logging on with a password.
The look and feel is user-friendly and very similar to Google and Yahoo! The
software file size varies from 6.9MB for computers with Windows to 9.2MB for
the generic version that runs on all Java supported systems like OS2 Warp,
Linux, Sun, and Mac. The beta version is downloadable at http://x-friend.de and
is free.
Yahoo! Desktop Search 1.1 Beta
This desktop search program combines many features found in the others. It
can search 300-plus file formats, including media files, and even obscure ones
like compressed files, database formats, and MS DOS. It has a preview pane and
can search zip files and display file contents in a tree structure. Intuitive
and guesses what you are looking for as you type. Searches can be saved,
similar to the Smartfolder feature of Spotlight and Blinkx. Indexing Yahoo!
Instant Messaging logs, address books, and e-mail is a cinch. It does not display
results in web browser format and has its own user interface. It cannot index
network drives and there is no dynamic indexing or web history search. Another
drawback is that it displays too much information. The software runs on Windows
2000 Service Pack 3+ or XP and can be downloaded free.
5 Desktop Search Engines for a Fee
diskMETA Pro 1.0.1
Simple to use, but not too powerful, does not support e-mail search or Web
history, has limited filtering and sorting, and no preview pane. An advantage
is its word accuracy, which includes a dictionary that can identify and relate
words based on similar roots, for example, “innovation” and “innovate”,
something most desktop search tools do not have. Unlike other search tools that
shows all search results regardless of the number that can be overwhelming, for
example a list of thousands of documents with the keyword, diskMETA is more
intuitive, displaying only the most relevant, and is therefore easier to use.
diskMETA-lite is 1.8MB and can be downloaded free from www.diskmeta.com but the
diskMETA Personal and Professional versions are not free but comes in a
free 30-day trial version. All products work with Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP,
and 2003.
dtSearch Desktop 6.5
dtSearch Desktop is outstanding in terms of word accuracy features but has
low user-friendly features. There is no search keyword field on the main
window, so users have to go through the menu. The software is fast in searching
large amounts of text across a desktop, network, Internet or Intranet site and
supports a wide array of document types. If developers improve its graphic user
interface to make it less tedious to set-up, dtSearch can be a more interesting
user-friendly desktop search engine. dtSearch is more useful for corporations
and does not come free, although there is a 30-day free trial version
that can be downloaded from the company’s website (www.dtsearch.com). Works
with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and .NET. dtSearch requires IIS
(Internet Information Server). A Linux version is also available.
Enfish Professional 6.1.4
Enfish is different from the others in terms of usability. Users can
customize look and feel, personalize calendar, contacts, and weather views
aside from displaying search and file previews. Operating the program takes
time to learn, but the payoff is worth it. Enfish can open any item from a
single location, searching across all your hard drives, removable drives,
network drives, and the Internet. It can also search several file formats. Its
cross-referencing ability allows quick access to related information. The
Enfish Professional version is not free, but a 30-day free trial is
available from the website (www.enfish.com). Works with Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0
(Service Pack 3 or greater), 2000, and XP. Pentium 300MHz or higher, 256MB RAM,
and at least 30MB of free space in your hard drive.
ISYS Desktop 7.0
ISYS was developed for MS DOS applications in 1988, making it one of the
oldest desktop search engines. Law firms, government agencies, criminal
intelligence units, and large corporations use it. It can index not only your
computer but also a company’s computer network. Supporting 125 file formats,
ISYS can run under Windows 95/98/ME and Windows NT/2000/XP. The program uses
fuzzy logic to adjust for typographical errors in scanned documents and
corrects inconsistencies in date formats. ISYS is a versatile tool and supports
many e-mail clients including Eudora and Compuserve. Some drawbacks are the
need to learn and memorize search commands, and toolbar icons are difficult to
understand and do not have text descriptions. A powerful program, but it can be
more user-friendly. The latest version, ISYS Desktop 7.0, is not free. A
free 14-day trial version can be downloaded from the website (isysusa.com).
Wizetech Archivarius 3000 3.28
Reviewers describe its usability and efficiency as astonishing. Has a simple
graphics user interface design and organizes several features in a compact way.
Initial indexing time is fast and memory usage is relatively low. It can search
a wide array of e-mail applications. A unique feature allows it to act as a
small Web server so that remote users can search the computer through a web
browser; runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP. Its main drawback is its
inability to search media files or Web history. The shareware version is
available at www.softpile.com and is 4MB in size.
2 Search Engines for the Apple Mac
Blinkx 3.0 for Windows and Mac
One of the first desktop search engines for the Apple Macintosh operating
system, the latest version 3.0 is for both Windows and Mac OS X. One original
feature of Blinkx is its ability to use the content of documents you are
currently working on to narrow down search results. Blinkx also includes a
so-called Smartfolder, created every time you search your drive. Blinkx then
automatically fills and updates the smart folder with similar documents from
your PC and crawls the web for news articles, TV, radio or video clips etc.
Blinkx Visualizer links search results and relates each to one another. Blinkx for
the Mac can search and index documents in PC format. The latest version looks
similar to the Mac user interface. One drawback is the slow pace of indexing
that uses up a lot of memory, so results take time to display. Future versions
should address this problem. Blinkx can be downloaded free from www.blinkx.com.
Spotlight for Mac OS X Tiger
This desktop search engine comes with the new Mac’s OS X Tiger operating
system. It is like other search engines and includes some features of Blinkx
like the Smartfolder. Fast (you can see results as soon as you start typing),
it can look at file titles, contents, author, edit history, format, size, and
other details across all applications: messages, address book, calendar, and
system preferences. Security is enhanced by allowing you to add folders and
files to a privacy list, avoiding one of the problems in other early versions
of desktop search engines. As in all things Mac, Spotlight is user friendly and
intuitive. Works well for Mac users with OS X Tiger system installed.
Other Desktop Search Engines
You can also check out two less popular desktop search engines: Aduna
Autofocus and Viapoint. Aduna (http://aduna.biz ) is free for private use but
charges a fee for commercial use. You can download Viapoint (www.viapoint.com)
free but to search e-mails, you need to buy an adapter after paying a perpetual
license fee.
Which One Is Best?
A study conducted in early 2005 by the University
of Wisconsin e-Business Consortium
evaluated twelve desktop search tools based on six criteria. In that study, the
following search engine versions ranked high:
Usability: AskJeeves 1.7,
Copernic 1.5, 3.14, Google 1.0, MSN Toolbar Suite
2.0, Wizetech Archivarius 3000
Enterprise
Readiness: Copernic 1.5, ISYS 6.0, and Yahoo 1.1
Newer versions – Archivarius 3000 3.28, Google Desktop Search 2.0, and ISYS
7.0 – are now available, with improved performance and features. As the race of
the desktop search engines heats up, saving files and finding them will only
get simpler, faster, and easier.
You can check out the free desktop search engines at the following websites
for the latest versions and features before you decide.