Google’s Desktop Search is out (beta). It seems pretty interesting, but I’ve got a few complaints and grevences so far:
- No Firefox and Thunderbird Support. They know this. Let them know you want it (perhaps that would be a good SFX campaign).
- It looks like they prevent you from distributing a Google Search Plugin for Firefox. Look how the URL itself is structured:
http://127.0.0.1:4664/search&s=1850695040?q=foobar&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Search+DesktopSee, the s parameter. Thanks google. - No ability to exempt certain directories on your hard drive from being indexed. So it’s all or nothing.
- No ability to delete certain items from the index. Say I have a conversation over AIM I don’t want indexed for privacy/security issues, that’s not to say I don’t want any of them indexed.
Among the many other things.
Yea, it’s a preview. I like the idea, but google’s got a lot of refining to do if they want to convince me it’s worth it. To me, I see lots of room for improvement.
4 replies on “Google Desktop Search out”
From this post [1], there does seem to be a way to exempt certain directories from being indexed.
[1] http://blog.codefront.net/arch.....p-is-here/
How is it that Google Desktop does not support firefox? It seems to work fine for me.
– Lloyd
We built Gmail search and the new Desktop search into our firefox toolbar. As you mentioned, it was a bit of a pain to build the desktop search because of the URL structure.
http://www.firefoxtoolbar.com/google
If you haven’t uninstalled it yet, any chance of giving the firefox toolbar a test for me?
Thanks,
-Pat
pat@vpop.net
I also make a quick Mycroft plugin. It’s the same sort of idea, without all the extra functions of the toolbar:
http://www.quasistoic.org/ts/archives/2004/10/15/