Software Gadgets

There are a number of free programs that would like to be your desktop search engine. I’ve tried a number of them and with one exception have found them either too resource hungry, too inconvenient in the presentation of search results, or both. The exception has been the less known Copernic Desktop Search. Version 1.x of this program indexed rapidly, but left your computer usable while it indexed instead of slowly everything else to a crawl. It searched rapidly and presented it results in a nicely formatted manner.

On September 20th, Copernic released version 2.0 of this program. Copernic Desktop Search 2.0 makes a good program even better with noticeable improvements to indexing speed, query speed, and memory usage. Version 2.0 has secured Copernic Desktop Search’s position as the fast and resource friendly desktop search program. The improvements to searching include:

• Simultaneously search in all categories with the new “All” category
• Eliminate spelling errors with smart query correction (a.k.a. “did you mean”)
• New “as you type” suggestions for advanced search fields
• Improved result views with picture thumbnails, additional sorting/grouping options, etc.
• “My Searches” feature lets you save your favorite queries for one-click reuse
• NEAR search operator to find keywords that are in close proximity
• New advanced search fields, such as “File Name”
• Wildcards support to broaden your searches by file name

The Deskbar (an optional bar for your taskbar) has been made more useful with a nice popup window that immediately presents search results. I like to keep my taskbar uncluttered so I don’t use the deskbar, but it works very nicely. Copernic Desktop Search can index over 150 types of files including email from Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunderbird as well as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Wordperfect, and OpenOffice documents. It indexes new email and new files in near real time and you can easily schedule how often it reindexes your drives and even tell it which directories not to bother tracking.

This program is a pleasure to actually search with, it presents possible results quickly as you type your search terms — and it a well-designed, nice looking results window. You can limit the search to email, graphics, mp3s, etc. if you wish and the search window provides a preview of many types of files so you can quickly scan results files for just the one you are looking for if many possibilities are returned. It you want a free desktop search program, try version 2.0 of Copernic Desktop Search first. I think the chances are good that you will prefer it to the other options available.

Rating: 5.0
Operating System: Windows 98+
License: Freeware
Price: Free
Version: 2.0
Web Site: http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html

[tags]windows, desktop search, copernic desktop search, freeware[/tags]