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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

desktop search: google vs. yahoo

i recently tried two desktop search products, google and yahoo. google just launched 1.0 of its desktop search while yahoo bought X1 and branded it as its own desktop search. my pick is google at the end although i prefer to give other product a try because i don't like google to monopoly the search market. Here is my opinion:

yahoo desktop search

pros:


  • supports a lot of file formats

  • preview many file formats


cons:

  • resources intensive - depending on your configuration, it may can your hard disk once in 30 minutes. althought, the process has a low priority, i still don't like it.

  • does not support index on the fly - this is why it needs to scan your harddisk more often.

  • slow when large file gets previewed - if you happen to click on a large file, it gets very slow. i don't like to see a program that is not responding.

  • user interface too complicated - although it has many advanced features, i think the ui is too complicated. it is intended for advanced users. i like simple and easy to use. i think that's the key to success.


google desktop search

pros:

  • simple user interface - do you know how to use google? if yes, then you can use desktop search.

  • resources fridenly - it runs seeminglessly in the background. i never notice its existence.

  • smart indexing on viewing, creating and modifying - if you view, create or modify a file, it gets indexed immediately. no need to wait until the next indexing job run which yahoo does.

  • improved security - google improved some of the security issues over the beta version. now you can choose to not index password protected office documents. it also allows you to remove items stored in the cache.

  • cache versions - google can cache older versions

  • open API to allow supports for more file types


cons:

  • google wants to monopoly the search market.

  • less privacy - you have to be careful to use this tool. it even finds things you don't want others to see. study how to use the security features before it indexes your harddisk.


I also want to try another product copernic to see how well it compares with google.

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