Google to unveil desktop search

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Google on Thursday unveiled its first-generation desktop application for searching through personal files on the PC and through a person's Web history, a move that could shake up the landscape of Internet search and raise privacy hackles.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which will report earnings for the first time as a public company next week, has created Google Desktop Search, a thin-client application that lets people retrieve e-mail, office documents, AOL chat logs and a history of Web pages previously viewed, all via the Web browser. "It's like photographic memory for your computer--if you've seen it before, you should be able to find it," said Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products at Google.

Download: Google Desktop Search

News source: C|Net News.com

System Requirements

Processor: Power Mac G3, G4 or G4 Cube, G5; iMac; PowerBook G3 or G4;
iBook; or eMac computer.
Operating system: Mac OS X version 10.2.8 or later (10.3.3 recommended)
Memory: 128 MB of RAM.
Hard disk: 12 MB of available hard disk space.
Programs: Internet browser required, such as Microsoft® Internet Explorer for Mac or Safari.
Modem: 28.8 Kbps or higher.
Internet access: Internet connection through either an Internet service provider (ISP) or a network. Internet access might require a fee to an ISP; local or long-distance telephone charges might also apply.

#1 Yakkob on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:48

I have a photographic memory anyways..

This is of no use to me.

(5 replies) #2 WinMacLin on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:49

hahaha @ Yakkob!

And I have no use for this either... I'm on a Mac and well instant search results

#2.1 tapo on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:56

Mac users get a little bit more powerful version of this (Developers can write plug-ins to their apps, not limited to a handful like Google) in Mac OS X 10.4 with Spotlight.

However, this still does look damn awesome. If only I used IE/Outlook/Office/AIM on my Windows box.

#2.2 Knight' on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:07

I know it really sucks for us Linux users :|

#2.3 slapnuts_ox on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:11

maybe they will make a linux client?

#2.4 tterb on 15 Oct 2004 - 06:31

The next version of KDE (3.4) will include similar functionality built in. Im really looking forward to this as X1 is the only app keeping me tied to windows.

#2.5 dotnetjunkie on 16 Oct 2004 - 12:59

The next version of Windows will offer WinFS, which already now (in beta) is much better and way more advanced than this Google desktop search.
KDE is and will always be lightyears behind with current technology, so don't bother to wait for 3.4.

(1 reply) #3 nathanintu on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:51

This can be a good thing, competition for the Windows search tool.

#3.1 anog on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:56

Now MS will have to remove the search feature from windows or they will be sued by google

#4 mstx on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:56

The download link should be http://desktop.google.com/. I got a file not found error on the other one first.

edit: now I don't get that error anymore :-/

(5 replies) #5 Porp on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:56

I'll use Search built-into Windows. Im already used to it.

#5.1 aristotle-dude on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:43

Too bad it's broken in XP you cannot search within text files with extensions like .c,.php,.pl without a registry hack.

#5.2 Techo on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:17

I use Agent Ransack, a great free search tool , pretty fast too. A lot like the search tool in the old Win9x days

#5.3 rhyno on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:43

Just googled, downloaded, installed, and ran Agent Ransack -- it is a sweet tool, and fast. Thanks Techo!

#5.4 kitchenutensils on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:55

its much slower - it doesn't index. also its easier to use from google homepage

#5.5 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:36

^There is the indexing service though.

(4 replies) #6 blenheim on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:56

Thought I would give it a whirl, though I currently use the Copernic Desktop search tool, which is great.

Google app had a hissy fit when ran the installer as I use NOD32. Turns out that at the mo it is completely incompatible with NOD32.

#6.1 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:43

Yeah I just read that. Well that's it for me then; not going to uninstall my AV for this.

#6.2 Rabbai on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:58

same here

#6.3 jmc777 on 14 Oct 2004 - 21:22

What version of NOD32 are you using? I'm using 2.12.2 and it installed without any problems.

#6.4 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 21:55

I have that version as well. When I install it detects it and says that it can go no further.

(3 replies) #7 supernova_00 on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:59

grrr its only for Internet Explorer

#7.1 neckaros on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:09

Are you sure? right now (indexing my files) it is working with FireFox
The only thing required is:

QUOTE

Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP 3+

#7.2 supernova_00 on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:12

told me it needed to enable some add-ons bs for internet explorer...f that

#7.3 madd_matt on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:07

its just the integration with google.com i think for the IE thing...

(1 reply) #8 doodzzz on 14 Oct 2004 - 14:59

Lol.

#8.1 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 21:56

(2 replies) #9 thedarkavenger on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:04

*giggles* hey checkit how it knows records all your https traffic and email. now google don't only own all your webmail they know your credit card number and they know what webpages you go on .

big brother is watching

hide the porn

#9.1 todd` on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:17

you can disable https recording if youre that worried that google will steal your cc number and stuff

#9.2 Jugalator on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:19

Eh, the https is indexed on your computer, your files aren't sent to Google!

They wouldn't be able to handle the massive traffic that would mean anyway...

The only thing that's sent to Google is talkback data, and you can disable that if you really want to, but I prefer to sent them info about what happened if their program crashed so I'm keeping it enabled myself.

#10 smokiethebandit on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:15

Nice stuff, I like it, works excellent. Much faster than windows search.

(2 replies) #11 todd` on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:18

Very fast.. while the searching through a web page (on a local httpd) idea is unique, i find it less desirable than a windows form

#11.1 elliot on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:14

Agreed. I see why they wanted it like that, but i'd much prefer an application similar to the windows search.

#11.2 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:38

Agreed, it just look weird.

(1 reply) #12 Randall_Lind on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:35

Everybody on the fourm say GOOGLE!

#12.1 Krankerz on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:51

What do we get out of it?

Oops...I mean...GOOGLE!

(1 reply) #13 jcvortex on 14 Oct 2004 - 15:36

When I heard google was making a desktop search I thought of "Sherlock" and "Watson" for the mac. It has fast indexing, but you can't search music and video...it's a little underwhelming!

#13.1 tapo on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:01

Google's desktop search is designed around this whole new concept (which I still don't see the use for) for searching inside files, rather then filenames, which is what Sherlock did.

I'm just glad they killed sherlock as a desktop search app in 10.2, it was slow and bloated. It's okay for web searching though.

#14 jmole on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:04

Perfect for doing a Google Image search for pr0n on my HD.

#15 kainashi on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:13

this is great.

#16 Jugalator on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:15

This seems great!

Seamless integration with the online Google web search too if you've installed it.

Will probably beat both MS' current computer search hands down (although maybe not the delayed WinFS thingy though

) and possibly even Mac's Sherlock.

(1 reply) #17 elliot on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:19

Not too keen on it using four processes and a combined 17MB.

#17.1 y_notm on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:44

its better than copernics 30+ mb, although as of now I think copernic might be a little more feature packed (image previews and such)

(2 replies) #18 Carlson-online on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:30

i dont think this is all a good thing you know

"Since you can easily search information on your computer, you don't need to worry about organizing your files, email, or bookmarks. "

that encorages bad file management, which is BAD!!

#18.1 Andareed on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:46

Who says the current file organization (hierarchy of files) is good? Imo, meta based filing (like WinFS) is much more natural.

#18.2 SureGuy on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:14

While I agree that proper file management is important, I think for the average user it is far too time consuming and difficult (as well as can lead to problems if you start moving files and don't actually know what you're doing - you know broken short cuts, moved program folders etc). At the end of the day this will likely help users who constantly lose things....

(1 reply) #19 SniperX on 14 Oct 2004 - 16:46

Seems like a great concept but I'll wait for it to mature a little first. From what I see it doesn't search through MSN chats ATM.

#19.1 Kushan on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:29

I sue messenger plus's logs, smaller and by far a LOT easier to understand, and since they're text files they're cached

(1 reply) #20 Greenstein on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:21

screenies???

#20.1 chacho on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:53

go to the site,

(1 reply) #21 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:23

That's kinda funny.

4. What are the system requirements for running Google Desktop Search?

Google Desktop Search is currently available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above. To install, you must have administrator privileges (home users shouldn't have this problem; people in offices might). It also requires 500MB of space available on your hard disk. We also recommend a minimum of 128MB of RAM and a 400MHz Pentium processor.

#21.1 jmc777 on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:28

It needs that space to index your files. You would need to have a LOT of stuff on your HD(s) in order to have an index weighing in at anywhere near 500MB. My Copernic Desktop Search index is around 148MB, that ain't much considering the size of modern day HDs.

#22 Zepolcire on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:36

I dont find this faster than the Windows search. It creates an Index which is what the default search tool does once you enable it, and it runs the same. It is better that it searches more file types for text and such, also email, and past webpages that you have been too. That's cool for trying to find that certain "link" that you need for..uh...homework.

#23 trolane on 14 Oct 2004 - 17:50

what the hell does search have to do with my network stack. it tells me to get rid of ca antivirus software in order to use google search because of a network stack conflict wit CA. WTF......

(1 reply) #24 teste on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:13

When you click on the "help" on the http://www.desktop.google.com page, it goes to http://www.desktop.google.com/support which displays the following...

There is no Trakken customer matching the domain:

www.desktop.google.com

Perhaps there isn't a site here because you haven't signed up for one yet!
For more information about the Neotonic Trakken product,
be sure to check out the Trakken Product page.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2004 Neotonic Software Corporation
All rights reserved.

#24.1 chacho on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:55

http://desktop.google.com/support

(2 replies) #25 qwin on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:22

wow what a kool thing, but doesn't windows have that built in!!!

#25.1 chacho on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:55

windows' built-in search is ****ty and doesnt search for and within all the filetypes listed

#25.2 aristofeles on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:35

The index service does.

(1 reply) #26 Billprozac on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:50

Hmmm, two things to comment.

1. I would love if this could be used to perform a network wide search. That would come in handy for find documents that have been removed from network shares or the like.

2. The google toolbar does not work with this.

#26.1 chacho on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:57

1. agreed

2. if you do a regular google search, it integrates the results into the web search page, so you'd get your results from a toolbar search

(1 reply) #27 teste on 14 Oct 2004 - 18:59

it's actually not bad, but... some improvements / additions

search and index the following additional file types

- other chat programs (msn/jabber etc...)
- firefox/opera cache
- thunderbird emails (and other email programs like eudora etc...)
- mp3/oog/wma/m4a id3/aac type info, would mean finding music (be it wma/mp3/oog/itunes) a snap

- addition of Desktop section to standard google home page (if the desktop search is installed)
- be able to specify any other file types (eg IRC log files etc...)
- PATRIAL WORD SEARCH... oh come on Google... this is a no brainer...

Few things I have spotted... looks like google can "extend" the capabilities of this tool, have a look in "%programfiles%GoogleGoogle Desktop Search" and you'll see the following files...

GoogleDesktopIE.dll,
GoogleDesktopOE.exe
GoogleDesktopOffice.dll

along with a few other files, anyone hazard a guess as to what the network1/network2/dll files are for

Oh, in your FAQ tell people that there's now a daemon running on your pc on port 4664 (via 127.0.0.1:4664)

Needs some improvements

#27.1 MoRiA on 15 Oct 2004 - 07:26

Oh, in your FAQ tell people that there's now a daemon running on your pc on port 4664 (via 127.0.0.1:4664)

It's bound to 127.0.0.1 (I checked with a networked PC) so it's not exactly a security risk at all...

(1 reply) #28 PR. on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:07

Could this software be used to index a company file server?

#28.1 teste on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:23

so far it only searches local drives, not network drives

(1 reply) #29 red5torm on 14 Oct 2004 - 19:57

Has anyone tried to do a simple performance benchmark between Copernic Desktop and Google Desktop Search? Been using P4 with 128MB and Copernic seems to be s..l..o..w.

#29.1 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:39

128 MB of RAM is your problem there.

#30 Cyranthus on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:07

isnt this just like the windows Indexing Service?

#31 [lexx] on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:09

This is really THE BEST TOOL EVER. And it is even faster than google.com itself. I have a number of documents and the search lasts for a second.

It is something that we all were waiting for.

Therefore it is only beta. In the future I would like to search through all my CPU's data. Even MP3 tags, and, maybe, even cached images...

#32 nomis_nehc on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:24

can't be used with netlimiter... sux0rs

(1 reply) #33 zachman123 on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:29

Where does it store the cache? (I want to delete some stuff that got put in (browser history) automatically

)

#33.1 MoRiA on 15 Oct 2004 - 07:30

ocuments and Settings<USER>Local SettingsApplication DataGoogleGoogle Desktop Search

Looks like it's there. All the files there are locked open by the desktop search processes and will probably be un-readable anyway...

(1 reply) #34 Billprozac on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:31

Does anyone know if this can be accessed from another computer? unless it only listens to the 127.0.0.1 ip, then you could search any computer on your network with this as long as they do not have a FW blocking port 4664.

[update]

I just tried to access the dts using my ip address (192.168.0.

and it would not respond, so it looks like it will only work off of the loopback which imho is a limiting factor. I would love to use this to search the files of the computers here on my work network. Could make administration easier.

Last edited by 48049 on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:37

#34.1 MoRiA on 15 Oct 2004 - 07:28

Yes, it is bound to 127.0.0.1. It would make a nice option (disabled by default, of course), yes.

#35 martinsc on 14 Oct 2004 - 20:59

go google go!
using it now

i just love those google guys...

#36 hardgiant on 14 Oct 2004 - 21:14

Locate for Windows is what I've been using and I really doubt this will be better.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1044509669/1

AvaFind is also good but it's has two version free and professional.

(2 replies) #37 aruvam on 14 Oct 2004 - 21:21

It is very similar to filehand http://www.filehand.com/ which is a very cool tool
more details and screenshots are here http://www.filehand.com/tour.htm

#37.1 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 21:59

Thanks, checking it out now.

#37.2 Mav Phoenix on 14 Oct 2004 - 22:46

Damn, it doesn't even search images.

Guess I still need to use the Windows search for that, or Picasa.

#38 brianshapiro on 14 Oct 2004 - 22:06

So this indexes the entire text of files... how much disk space does that take...

(1 reply) #39 mkvans on 14 Oct 2004 - 23:14

Anyone thats using X1 think the google search is better? Or should I just stick with X1?

#39.1 tterb on 15 Oct 2004 - 04:01

At this stage X1 is by far the more mature product, google search doesn't even index .pdf's yet. There is no doubt however that this release will put pressure on X1. Hopefully they will lower their price ($99 is a joke) and cut out "features" like phoning home..

#40 Ivand on 15 Oct 2004 - 02:20

Google never cease to amaze me.. They are going to take over the world

#41 BGuillaume on 15 Oct 2004 - 07:49

alright, let's see how Yahoo will surpass Google as it always do

#42 Jugalator on 15 Oct 2004 - 09:43

"a move that could shake up the landscape of Internet search and raise privacy hackles"

Huh? Care to explain why?

A tool that's searching your hard drive cause privacy concerns?

Seems like everything does that nowadays, even if the tools don't send your data anywhere...

#43 mathwizxp on 15 Oct 2004 - 18:34

I installed Google Desktop Search yesterday and it worked great. It
was indexing my files and I could search through the ones that were
currently indexed. When I went to the Google Homepage, the Desktop
feature was there and everything was running smoothly. Then I decided
to restart my computer. That is where everything got messed up.

There is a program called CyberPatrol that runs on my computer. It is a
web filtering program. When the computer was restarted, a window poped
up from CyberPatrol saying...

"CyberPatrol has detected and repaired a problem with Internet
Filtering. This could have been due to the installation of third-party
software or tampering with the Internet Filtering layer of CyberPatrol.
Please re-start this computer for these repairs to take affect."

So I restarted the the computer and when everything was loading, a
window poped up from Google Desktop Search saying...

"Google Desktop Search has detected a problem with your netwrok setup.A
recently installed program may have overwritten the Google Desktop
Search network module. Google Desktop Search will not work correctly.
If desired, you can try uninstalling the new program if there is one.
The following information may help identify the problem. Please send a
screenshot if contacting technical support.

CPLSP MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP]
C:WINDOWSsystem32cplsp.dll
CPLSP MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP]
CPLSP MSAFD Tcpip [RAW/IP]
CPLSP RSVP UDP Service Provider
CPLSP RSVP TCP Service Provider

Google Desktop over [CPLSP MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP]]

C

rogram FilesGoogleGoogle Desktop SearchGoogleDesktopNetwork1.dll

Google Desktop over [CPLSP MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP]]

Google Desktop over [CPLSP MSAFD Tcpip [RAW/IP]]

%SystemRoot%system32mswsock.dll

%SystemRoot%system32rsvpsp.dll

S03"

I showes these two errors to me friend and he says that I shouldn't
even be able to get online right now. CyberPatrol seems to reroute the
internet through itself in a way that isn't safe or something. But
anywyay, I get that error from Google everytime that I start Google
Desktop Search, which is every time that i start up the computer. The
program seems to run allright after that, but if I go to
www.google.com, then the Desktop link in no longer there. I wont get
results for Desktop results from Google when I use the standard Google
search.

I tried uninstalling Google Desktop Search, and then reinstalling it.
When I do that, it works fine until I restart the computer, that is
where I run into problems again. CyberPatrol pops up and says the same
error message, I restart the computer and I run into the same problems
with Google Desktop Search.

Can someone please tell me what I can do get Google Desktop Search to
work? I've been waiting forever for this to come out. And by the way,
uninstalling CyberPatrol is not an option. It needs to be there. Thank
you for reading this and I hope to get a response soon. Thank you again.

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