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I am a fan and heavy user of Google Desktop Search but have always been curios about Windows Desktop Search and wanted to do a comparison between the two. Well, the guys at Download Squad have beaten me to it and done a good job in comparing the latest offerings from Microsoft and Google.
They looked at a number of factors that are important from a user’s point of view including:
- Indexing options available
- Automatic categorisation of documents
- General Ease of Use
Whilst it suggest that Google is slightly faster in query response time (and I can concur that the response time for Google Desktop is certainly lightly fast !), the comparison basically resulted in more or less a draw between both offerings. This is not surprising considering the amount of effort and focus Microsoft has put in in defending its desktop strong hold that is the Windows franchise and the fact that Desktop Search is a relatively simpler technical challenge when compared with Web Search.
One of the main emission from the article is a comparison of the type of documents supported which to be is a HUGE factor. Whilst both offerings states that Lotus Notes is supported as a document source, I would have liked to see a detailed test and analysis just because it is probably the most difficult source it terms of desktop documents.
If you are a user of Lotus Notes and do need to index and search Notes emails, I can personally recommend that you go with Google Desktop Search as it rocks. I use it on a daily basis and only is the indexing process seamless, the results presentation is fantastic and it even allow you to preview the email in the results listing page. Just remember to download the Google Desktop Search Enterprise Edition and enable to the Lotus Notes Plugin after you installed it.
For those of you who have not used or tried Desktop Search technologies, check out this article for a discussion on some of the other desktop search offerings and give it a go as they are a great productivity booster !
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Love Google Desktop Search, hate Lotus Notes with great passion; can’t get Google Desktop Search to search beyond my inbox – any email stored in a folder is not included in search???