Google Desktop
 

http://desktop.google.com

This puppy indexes all of your documents, internet history, e-mail, and AIM chats and allows you to search. It's speedy and I love that it logs all of your IM conversations. I think it's great (if not a little scary) that Google is making inroads into all these new areas. ^^

Looks good, at work at the moment and am guessing IM would not be too thrilled with a trouble ticket with my computer being screwed after a Beta install.....then again, it IS pretty quiet..... ;)

Interesting product, and fits in nicely with Google's plan of extending searches to the desktop.

I've been using Lookout for Outlook for some time now, Microsoft was so impressed that they purchased Lookout and will be adding that technology to Outlook in the future...

Awsome finding - thanks for sharing and definitely extremely useful.

I just read they registered "gbrowser.com" back in April - so looks like many more things to come !

Under preferences, be sure to turn off the reporting back to Google, never know what they'll be sending :)

^ ^ I wonder if Google's stance on the privacy issue will eventually affect their acceptance.

You know, I don't think it will...

People love privacy, but they seem to love 1Gb of free email even more. :)

For some reason, Google is a company I have a lot of faith in.

I second ScottC's recommendation to turn off this "send it back to Google" thing...they sure try to collect a lot of data. I always turn off this kind of stuff.

(BTW: You can have IM logging built-in (and at the same time get rid of all these useless ads in AIM) and multiple protocols in one client if you download Trillian: www.ceruleanstudios.com - I think it is the best IM client ever.)

Without a doubt.

Be careful...
 

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/000264.html
Google Desktop Search: Security Threat?

Posted by Tom Spring
Friday, October 15, 2004, 06:29 AM (PST)


Google Desktop Search might just be too good. Using the new software, I was able to bypass user names and passwords that secure Web-based e-mail programs and view personal messages sent and received on public PCs.

Using Google's new software on a shared computer at the Google booth at the Digital Life trade show floor I was able to easily search for, find, and read private Yahoo e-mail sent on the computer by previous users earlier in the day.

Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products, told me she wasn't surprised. "This is not a bug, rather a feature," she says.
Google always intended people to be able to index and search Web-based e-mail viewed and composed on PC, she says. Google Desktop Search is not intended to be used on computers that are shared with more than one person, she says.

Whether or not Google intended this, I take great pause at knowing any e-mail I write or read on a PC with Google Desktop Search could be called up and read by a complete stranger.

To find old e-mail on the PC, I searched for "compose" and "inbox"
using Google Desktop Search. This allowed me to view pages that Google Desktop Search had indexed. I was not able to access the query results directly, but Google Desktop Search stores cached versions of search results found on your desktop, just like it does for its Web searches.
The cached versions of the pages could be viewed.

By accessing Google Desktop Search cached pages I could then easily access multiple Web-based e-mail accounts and view some of the messages that had been opened previously in the browser. Searching for "compose" yielded the most startling results. I was able to read private missives sent on the PC very easily.

On one computer alone I was able to access no less that 10 personal e-mails that had been sent using password-protected Web-based e-mail accounts.

Mayer dismissed my concern that this is a security issue. She points out that you can configure Google Desktop Search not to index Web pages or specific domains. That would prevent Google Desktop Search from indexing and caching the URL "mail.yahoo.com".

Google has had to face security questions in the past over its GMail Web-based e-mail service.

I installed it yesterday, and no performace issues with it, and it works wonderful.

As always, there will be concerns with google and privacy.

Maybe a screen saver with a password will resolve these new issues :p

^^^^

This is just awesome. It is already helped me bring documents and emails together quicly to solve a problem after just one day of use.

Like ScottC I also use Lookout. Check it out at Http://sandbox.msn.com I tried out Google desktop yesterday on one of my computers and like it. I think it would be awesome to get something combining both Lookout and Google desktop.

I like the way Lookout pretty much integrates with Outlook, but I like Google's ability to search my Internet cache.

Something I hadn't noticed, when I go to google.com or use the toolbar it ALSO includes local searches through Google Desktop... amazing!

Saw something at a conference a week ago that MS is working on. Based on Lookout, it should go a step or 2 further than Google desktop. Basically, Google desktop with more file formats covered. They're calling is SIS...Stuff I've Seen, and I think I remember her saying that one of the people who developed Lookout is also now working on SIS. No slated release date though.
:(

I love this
 

I had been dreaming of something like this! It has saved my worklife :) Awesome program....

It does rock. Though I upgraded both of my machines from Outlook Express to Outlook 2003 recently and it hasn't indexed any new mail since then.

Hmm, did you tell it you did that? Under Preferences, make sure Outlook is checked (it's different from Outlook Express).

Other than JAaronT´s advice is that you need to leave the Outlook open for Google to crawl it over.

Great find!
Thanks for sharing.

Yup, it's checked, and both GoogleDesktopCrawl and GoogleDesktopIndex processes are running. Outlook is always open.

I guess I'll try reinstalling and see if that helps.

Has anyone figured out a way to have google desktop go through your mail if you are using something else other than Outlook? I would be interested in either Eudora or Thunderbird support.

Security Watch: Too Many Google Results
 

Should I be worried? :(

Please read this:

........all of the content in the file is available in Google's index without any passwords. In the case of the password file, searching on "password" will probably yield a hit on the file. You can then read the cached version of the file to see all the contents. Google confirmed that the product is designed to behave in this way. This behavior is surprising, in that even data you enter into a file which already encrypted will be in the index, indicating that Google is capturing it before it is written to disk.....

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1708644,00.asp

An alternative to Google Desktop is Copernic Desktop Search (free) - works very well for me and no concerns about it sending off stuff to Google without me knowing!

http://www.copernic.com

Another nice alternative is Blinkx. www.Blinkx.com

Blinkx will index mulitmedia files, outlook, outlook express, eudora, zip files, etc. It also will organize your content into smart folders based on the content of the files.

Call me naive, but if Google says they're not sneaking private info off your machine, that's good enough for me.

I used to use Scopeware Vision (a great tool, but the company busted). One day after installing the Google Desktop, I uninstalled Vision and never looked back.

I don't store my email in multiple folders based on some arbitrary relevancy. I have 2 folders for 5Gb (slightly over 50k messages): Inbox and Read. Any time I need ot look something up, I use the desktop interface (10s of times per day).

Google desktop is blazingly fast. I'd even pay for it if I had to.

You are probably right ... I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories.

Big downside for me is neither Google nor Copernic can search Lotus Notes which is my mail prog. and a repository for a lot of my information.

Any tools out there that do this?

Try enfish. I've not used it for some time, but I'm pretty sure it will index and search Notes files.