Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Google Desktop vs. MSN Desktop Search
I love Google like the next guy, and when they released Google Desktop Search I was psyched, cuz I'm always searching for crap on my hard drives. And it beat the hell out of Windows' search feature. But I found Google Desktop results to be awkward, lacked control, and didn't always update quickly and properly.
So the other day I installed Microsoft's version, MSN Desktop Search. Aside from Microsoft's clunky old-school download page, it's way more robust than Google Desktop. The main different is the user interface. Rather than opening your results in a browser window like Google Desktop, MSN Desktop Search launches its own application.
While launching the new MSN app means it takes a few extra seconds for your results to load, the MSN application is feature-rich and lets you find what you're looking for much more easily. It also seems to index stuff way instantly -- I can be in the middle of typing an email, do an MSN Desktop Search, and the email I'm currently writing shows up in the results. Confusing at first, but then I realized how cool that was.
Anyway, there you have it.
- pud
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