Google desktop search is obviously wonderful. “Google for the hard disk” is something one has wanted for years. But it’s not wonderful enough to get me using IE, which is the only browser it works with at present. I’m rather shocked by that. You’d have thought that riffling through the cache of a web browser was something that would work with any browser’s cache, not just IE’s.
Anyone who uses OOo is used to the fact that disk indexers generally ignore it, so I’m not offended that Google does. In any case, I have just discovered Docsearcher, which indexes OOo (and PDF, and MS Office, HTML and plaiin text) just fine. It’s free, open-source (Java, Lucence and stuff); it’s fast and not too fiddly to set up.
So there is nothing that the Google desktop offers I can’t already kludge. I don’t have docsearch index my Opera cache, but that’s because I only just thought of it. Of course it’s uglier and less convenient in some ways, but using Internet Explorer and/or Outlook condemns you to greater ugliness and inconvenience still.
The next question is how far back does one want the browser history indexed? I could copy the cache automatically to an indexable disk every evening. But how soon would that disk run out? And how many duplicates would I get? Deep dark matters.
In the meantime, I try to imagine what features Google could offer to make it worth my while to use IE and Outlook. The best I can come up with is a helper bar for online Poker rooms that would show the content of everyone else’s hand. This must be easier if all the other players are using IE.
I imagine they’ll support other browsers and email clients at some point in the near future. At least I hope so.
There’s “something you pointed”:http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/what-files-does-google-desktop-index out from your own blog to suggest this won’t happen; at least that it won’t happen as naturally and easily as one might think. The GDS is using some purely microsoft bits on the hard disk.
Gmail works fine with Firefox and will soon with Opera. But this looks different. It will surely damage Eudora if it it works well enough. Now that I have grown used to Opera mail I can’t imagine going back to a filter-based email program as opposed to one that indexes the mail and displays it on demand. Gmail does that, and presumably the google-desktopped Outlook will. But Eudora, Pegasus, the Bat! and so on must tend to wither on the vine.
The only part of Google Desktop that doesn’t work with Firefox is searching your browser cache. Everything else works fine.
I’m sure. But there’s a cumulative effect. It won’t search my browser cache: it won’t search my email, and it won’t search my word processor files.
The important part of GDS is that it gets onto lots of desktops quickly, because it’s pretty clear that there’s more to come (such as stuff that makes Google some money). GDS is fairy dust for the average corporate desktop: the feature set is a very good fit, it has a very low impact on other applications and working practices, and it seems to be reliable. More features – more browsers explicitly supported, more file types, more platforms – would make the product more complex and harder to test. I suspect someone made the decision to keep things as simple as possible while hitting as many sweet spots as they could.
It’s an engineering and marketing trade-off. Frustrating for people who take the directory path less travelled, but we’re used to that. GDS is like Apollo 11 – the important thing is that it reaches its destination and does not muck up. You can strap the Lunar Rovers onto the subsequent missions.
FWIW, I suspect the next big thing — given Google’s comfort with humungous data sets — will be a button marked ‘back up my data to Google’. GDS is doing a lot of work that this feature will need, both technically and in getting people comfortable with their data in Google’s hands.
R
I keep flinching. A button marked “Back up my encrypted data to Google” is one I might find attractive. The button you propose reminds me of the time el El staff offered to take my laptop through the next couple of hours’ security checks for me.
Of course I know why google is doing things this way, and I think they are being very sensible to do it too. It’s just another example of the rule that none of the best toys actually fit my life.