Another entrant into the crowded desktop search market debuts today – Yahoo Desktop Search, available in beta for download now.
I’m going to give it a miss. Download it for yourself here.
I’ve tried out just about all desktop search tools in the past few months – Google Desktop Search, Blinkx, X1 Desktop Search, Copernic Desktop Search, MSN Toolbar Suite. All good and all worth considering.
Therein lies much of a problem, as I see it. Which one do you use? Broadly, all offer the same functionality if all you want to do is just search for stuff on your PC or on the web. The various offerings differentiate themselves in a variety of ways. For instance, some let you search for more types of files than others. Tools like Blinkx integrate with your common applications to give you almost a measure of artificial intelligence in how it searches. The MSN offering gives you integration with Outlook.
All this is great. But my needs are dead simple – I just want a tool that lets me find certain files on my PC and which carries out its search to produce reliable results. I don’t use such a tool that often, two or three times a week at most. The types of files I want to look for are all included in nearly all of the various different tools.
Then it comes down to which one do I like using, looks nice, and I feel comfortable with. Taking everything into account, for me Copernic Desktop Search is still the one.
So thanks, Yahoo, but unless I read a review that says that your tool is the best thing since sliced bread, I’m not even going to try it out. But good luck with it.
Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.
Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.
