CONTINUING OPEN REVIEW
Globetechnology:
Google revamps desktop search program — Worth a look. Let’s make this an open review. Check it out and post comments please.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Google Inc. updated its software for searching PC hard drives and the Internet, giving the free program a new look and adding tools that deliver personalized information based on a user’s Web surfing habits.
Google Desktop 2, available Monday as a public beta test, is the company’s latest volley against Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. as all three race to expand their presence on PC desktops.
I’ve only been using it for a day, but so far so good. It’s handy, and has replaced 5 or so widgets I was running on my desktop.
It’s ugly, so hopefully they can improve the looks of it. I still do not like the way it indexes files. It will only index when idle, and is VERY slow to do so with no settings to override.
It doesn’t seem to take up much system processes. It does lose some settings when reset, but to be expected in a beta. So far, I give it a thumbs up with some room for improvement. I look forward to the next round of plug-ins and a cleaner beta.
In my mind this is not so much “Google Desktop Search” anymore … we are talking about a Google “Desktop” … who knows? Maybe Google OS is not far behind!
I also find that the GlobeTechnology.com report makes the whole thing really look like Mac OS’ Spotlight + Widget for windows!
Mario
I would love try out Google Desktop 2.0 but it doesn’t support Max OS X. It sounds like it does everything that Dashboard does so maybe I wouldn’t need it.
I’m sold on it, just for the google search right in Outlook, that’s worth it by itself.
The desktop portion is ok but not configurable enough. I want more than just left or right side of my desktop, i want bottom, tear offs, stickies and fades.
I like it. I’ve only been using it since this morning, but so far it seam to work fine and I’ve noticed there are already several plug-ins to extend it’s functionality. I do agree with slidenby that it’s a little ugly, but I think it’s only a matter of time before we get some plug-ins to fix that.
Love it. It does a much better job than the ones that I have seen on new PC’s promoting their own websites and programs. I’m looking forward to the add-ons. I think were going to see some really cool stuff.
I grump about some of the stuff that Google doesn’t offer for the Mac.
I turned on my old Wintel machine to download and try this — and I agree with Justin — it seems like a version of Dashboard/Spotlight for folks still using Windows. With commercials.
So far so good. It has been unable to index my gmail account for some reason. Any ideas? The System Monitor panel is nice too.
Google was working fine for a day – then I installed VCom’s System suite 6 and “WHAM” it was not working – going t5o try to uninstall and reinstall and see what happens
I was already a big fan of 1.0, just for the ability to search my Outlook email at the office. So far 2.0 seems great. And because it searches across network drives, I’m investigating using it as a department tool. Anybody know a good reason not to install it all department machines for indexing a shared drive? Wondering about drawbacks before I present it to my IT group.
Hey thanks…Now I can Google all your personal hard drives. I’ll take a look at that…and that…and ewww you sicko. : )
I’m finding the thing is grinding away on my disks to an extreme causing an annoyance.
I’d try it but for three reasons:
1. I refuse to use adware
2. I’m almost paranoid about closed-source software and very proud of how little I use.
3. I run Linux and prefer to minimize my use of Wine.
I’m fairly happy with the open-source tools I’m using now (Estraier and Namazu) but they do take some skill to comfortably set up and maintain. (No automatic scheduling of indexing is the biggest noticeable difference)
Great program so far. This is my first intro to desktop widgets and combined with tabbed browsing in Firefox it is changing the way I surf the web. The scratch pad is very cool and I have no problem with the advertisements.
I don’t know how much I’m really going to use some of these features. Some of it is nice, but I was never the type that has to be informed about every little thing as it happens.
I really like indexing networked drives, tho. That is certainly going to save me some time. We’ll just have to see if I get adicted to being “connected” or not.
I’m thinking “not”.
Here’s some alleged screenshots and info of the Google OS:
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/google-os–123473.php