Google Desktop review

Now, with Google's powerful technology you can index all the files on your personal computer to search and locate files when you want them. Google has been offering their desktop software for a few years now and it has improved over time with better security and features.

Google Desktop Search is immensely useful if you gets lots of spam every day, you may be having a hard time locating an important mail when you want it. Sometimes we save a file in some folder and then forget the name of the folder or even the file name and there's just no way to locate it. These are situations where Google Desktop can be a real lifesaver. Just type any relevant keyword and all files related to it will come up. Let's say you created a job application to Acme company and named it job_appl.doc. Now a week later you don't remember the file name but you're sure that the .doc file contained the word 'Acme'. Just type 'Acme' in the Google Desktop Search and see the file come up!

You can specify file types to be indexed

By going to preferences you can specify what you would like indexed. You can index Email, Chats, Web history, Media files, Text and other files, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Contacts,  Calendar, Tasks , Notes, Journal,  Zip files, Password-protected Office documents (Word, Excel), Secure pages (HTTPS) in web history. By just unchecking the boxes you can specify if you don't want any particular file type indexed. If you do end up indexing a certain file type which you don't want indexed, you can always uninstall the program and install it again. Just make sure you delete the Google Desktop cache when you're uninstalling. See more details below under 'Uninstalling Google Desktop'. You can exclude files and entire folders you don't want indexed in the Google Desktop Search. By doing this you can ensure that confidential data doesn't come up when you're doing a search with someone next to you. You can index additional drives and networked folders, if you run a LAN. All fixed drives are indexed by default. You can exclude any drives on your PC you don't want indexed.

Indexing runs in the background

The indexing runs when your computer is idle. it won't disturb you a bit. You can see the indexing status at any time to know what percentage of indexing is complete, the number of files indexed and the estimated time for completion.

Encrypt the index

You can encrypt Google Desktop index and data files. This may slow it down a bit, however and is not recommended.

Remove deleted files

You can remove deleted files from the search results. Any deleted files will no longer be searchable.

Google Desktop requirements

The Google Desktop installer program is less than 2.1 MB. It is compatible with Windows 2000 (Service Pack 3+), Windows XP (Service Pack 2+), and Windows Vista. Google Desktop doesn't run on Linux currently. Apart from this, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 (or above) is required. Mozilla Firefox (1.5 or above) is also fully supported. For best performance, Google recommends at least 256 MB RAM and a 600 MHz or faster Pentium class processor. To install, Google Desktop requires 1 gigabyte (GB) of disk space on your hard disk drive. After it has been installed, your personal Google Desktop index may require up to 4 additional GB. This will vary depending on the amount of data you require indexed.

Google Desktop's cached copies require substantially less space than the original documents but nevertheless Google Desktop does occupy a lot of space. This may not be a problem if you have a PC with even a 40 GB hard drive but older PC owners may find it a bit challenging.

Administrator privileges required

You need to have administrator privileges on your PC and without them you won't be able to install or use this program. In case you're confused, if you have a stand-along desktop, that is a home/office PC where you're the only user and one which is not connected to a local area network, you are the administrator and can use Google Desktop.

Uninstalling Google Desktop

Uninstalling this software is easy. If you're doing it so that you can rebuild the index, ensure that the box next to "Keep my index" is unchecked or your old index will be used when you reinstall. This is a very useful utility from Google with which you can bring the power of Google search to your own PC.