Google launched its new Google Desktop beta search tool today, providing a feature that Microsoft has long promised in the "next version" of the Windows operating system.

Google has risen from obscurity a few, short years ago to become the king of Internet search.

Now it's going to invade Microsoft's territory -- the desktop -- by delivering something to Windows users that Microsoft has been promising its customers for about 10 years: an easy way to find the files that they're looking for.

Google says that its free application indexes your computer hard drive to let you find e-mail, Web pages, instant messaging chat logs, text documents and other files, all presented with the familiar Google Web search interface.

The initial beta software is very Microsoft-focused as you can see from the following list:

Google Desktop Search finds:

Outlook  Outlook / Outlook Express Word  Word
AOL IM  AOL Instant Messenger Excel  Excel
Internet Explorer  Internet Explorer Powerpoint  PowerPoint
Text  Text


It's surprising that some common file types are not searchable, including MP3 and music files, digital video and Adobe's Acrobat PDF files.

The company says that the index "updates continually" throughout the day, making it possible to find information "within seconds" of receiving a new e-mail message or adding a new file to the computer. I wonder what kind of impact this constant indexing has on computer performance. If it's intelligently implemented, indexing activities will take place during periods where the computer processor isn't in use.

Google Desktop organizes Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail into Gmail-like threads (or "conversations" as Google likes to call them). It's an obvious choice to initially focus on these e-mail clients since they are the most widely deployed. However, I am curious if -- or when -- the software will support other e-mail applications like Thunderbird and Eudora.

Microsoft Office documents -- Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- and text files are an obvious focus of  Google Desktop. While this feature may not be of great importance to most home users, this is a great way to sneak in the back door and onto the corporate desktop.

AOL Instant Messenger chat transcripts are also searchable. Notable by their absence are Yahoo Messenger and Microsoft's Windows Messenger applications. No doubt, they will be added to the supported file types shortly.

Google Desktop stores a copy of the Web pages you visit:

When you view a web page in Internet Explorer, Google Desktop Search "caches" or stores its content so that you can later look at that same version of the page, even if its live content has changed or you're offline.

The feature only works if you use Internet Explorer (IE), though. This seems an odd choice because, although IE is the most widespread and popular browser by virtue of its inclusion and tight integration with every copy of Windows, the people most likely to install beta software such as Google Desktop are the innovators and early adopters (as defined by the Technology Adoption Lifecycle and Everett Rogers, author of  Diffusion of Innovations). Those groups, who evangelise new technologies, are far more likely to have abandoned IE for better, newer, more secure browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Opera.

The Web caching feature is a good idea in principle. While it could be helpful, most pages I visit are not remarkable enough that I would want to clutter up my hard drive with copies of them. I would venture a guess that that is true for most people.

Privacy
The Google Desktop Search application contains a unique ID and sends information back to Google about how you use it. Before installing it, you should read the Terms and Conditions as well as the Privacy Policy.

How we use unique application numbers, cookies and related information.
...we may be able to make Google services work better by associating this information with other Google services you use and vice versa.

The section above, excerpted from the Privacy Policy, suggests the aggregation of information from multiple databases, which is sure to raise the eyebrows of privacy advocates.

The company has avoided the privacy firestorm that it encountered with the launch of Gmail after it was revealed that the service would scan e-mails and serve content-sensitive/context-sensitive advertising.

Google says it doesn't use local search results to serve ads but hasn't ruled out doing so in the future. We'll see what happens if it does.


Google Desktop Search

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