BENEFITS OF DESKTOP SEARCH ENGINE

What do you do when you don't have information on a particular subject? You refer to search engines offered by Yahoo!, MSN, Google etc…. After all, with the gaining popularity of the Internet, it has become easier for people to locate information on the Web. You can locate anything over the web including your own street, house, images that gels you, information about anything etc… Each of them is now known to offer desktop search engines for your PCs.
Does word find space in your vocabulary? If not then read on.

What are Desktop Search Engines?

Desktop search engines are tools that help in locating your entire hard drive in less than a second to pinpoint the right file, email, music or pictures. Be it Outlook Express, Word, Firefox, Excel, PDF, Powerpoint, Images, Instant Messenger or, Video, you'll take only a few seconds to run a search on them
How are desktop search tools different from search
engines?
A 'search engine' in a website helps you search the Web.Search engines take the information gathered by its bots and use it to create a searchable index on the Net. You can use keywords to seek information on any subject required. A desktop search tool, on the other hand, utilizes CPU,
memory, and disk space efficiently to ensure continued high levels of system performance. For instance, if, during a course of one year, your search index has grown to 50000 documents, you don't have to spend the whole morning to find out what you are looking for. With the
help of desktop search tools, your entire PC will be searchable whenever you want it to be.
One of the main advantages of desktop search programs is that search results come up in a few seconds; Windows search companion can be some help, but it searches through Windows files and folders only, not e-mail or contact databases, and unless you enable the Indexing Service (in Windows 2000 or XP), the Windows search tool is extremely slow. A variety of desktop search
programs are now available.
Which websites offer desktop search engines?
Google, Yahoo! and MSN have well deserved reputation as the top choice for desktop search engines. Apart from these, there are others like the Copernic Desktop Search and T-Online, HotBot and Ask Jeeves that also offer downloadable search engines.
Which desktop search engine should you download?
Be it Google, MSN or Yahoo!, there are pros and cons to all of them as far as desktop search application is concerned. Yahoo! on the surface appears superior in features and performance to those of Google and MSN. But, unlike other desktop search applications, Web search isn't still well integrated into Yahoo! Desk Search tools. Also missing from YDS is one of the most useful
features of Google's desktop search the automatic indexing and caching of web pages you've viewed with Internet Explorer. Even though Google Desktop's searches go through sites
you've visited in Firefox/Nestcape/Mozilla, it suffers from a fatal flaw: It treats your PC as if it was a Web, and so doesn't let you fine-tune your searches. So when it comes to the daily work of searching, MSN Desktop Search often comes out on top.Google Desktop Search is unique in the way that it presents your desktop search results in your web browser, in the same way as regular web search results. It will Index files in Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, as
well as plain text and PDF Files. It will also include your website history in internet explorer, your chat messages in AOL, the MS Outlook or any other email client etc…..The local Google database is updated continuously. Unlike Google, Yahoo! Desktop Search does not display
results in search engine results like manner in your web browser. This program has its own interface and its own windows. Yahoo! Desktop Search will try to guess your intentions as you type. Hence the program will start displaying results even before you have typed the whole
query. Moreover, this program will, like the Copernic desktop search program, give you a preview of most files in a separate window pane. Among other interesting options are the possibility to save searches, and set indexing options by file type, email client, and contacts.
This means that you can exclude certain files based on size, name or content. You can also limit searches to certain filenames, file types, file size, dates or directories/paths
How safe is it to download desktop searching tools?
Security experts say one should be careful while downloading search engines. Virus writers could actually use new desktop search tools to make their malicious software more efficient.
Since they are free, virus writers can use their brand names to get into your PCs and make their malicious software more efficient. Most industry watchers agree the products aid
productivity: From a single interface, users can quickly search the text of their e-mail, contacts, application documents, data files, multimedia files and more. The problem is the information these programs can find and potentially expose, such as documents on a shared file drive that are not properly secured or were supposed to have been deleted. Other potential problems with Desktop search applications are : conflict with other applications and performance issues.
There are various tools available, so you need to be very careful while downloading search tools. In IT nothing comes without problems. The faster you try to get (to increase your productivity) using IT, the more problems you would face. This goes by default, but you also need
to pace up with the growing needs of business, right?