Last week Google released a beta version of its desktop search product. Because of Google's dominance in search engines, many people believe they are the product to beat. Although that may be a true statement, that doesn't mean the product is the best one for you.

For this article, I'll compare two desktop search tools Copernic Desktop and Google Desktop. These products are two of a growing number of desktop search programs. While we think both programs are useful, we suspect you'll base your decision on two factors. These include the information layout and the searchable file types.

Prerequisites

Before we start, there are a couple of points to note about desktop search tools. The first is the cost of these tools. As consumers, we often think of dollars, yet this is a secondary concern when it comes to desktop searching. Two other costs are disk space and CPU usage.

Most of us are familiar with simple search tools. As example, Outlook has a "search" feature to find emails that scans each message looking for your text string. No disk space is allocated to index files. As a result, it takes too much time to finish a search so few people regularly use this feature.

Both Google's and Copernic's desktop search tools are dependant on index files. Rather than scanning each file on your PC every time a search term is entered, these tools use index files. These index files are critical to desktop search, but are very large. The index size varies based on which file types you index and the number of files on your computer. On my notebook, these index files exceed 100 MB.

This large file size can be an issue if you're restricted to where the index files reside or are short on disk space. Some programs such as Google's Desktop have a fixed C: drive location unless you edit the registry. Other programs, such as Copernic Desktop allow you to choose the index location. We didn't see a free space requirement for Copernic Desktop, but Google requires 500MB of free space.

Although these index files make searching faster, they highlight an aspect people seldom think about security. Just as these programs make it easy for you to find data, they also make it easy for anyone else using the same login. Based on your computer settings, it is possible for others to find sensitive data. Some critics are concerned unethical people will install these programs on public terminals. The point has merit, but the responsibility for securing data still remains with the user. Moreover, people should not access private information from public terminals or wireless hotspots without using secure measures.

Another consideration is these search tools should always be running. Otherwise, your index files will be outdated resulting in fewer hits. Most desktop search programs do a good job of managing system resources and running in the background. You can also temporarily pause or stop indexing if needed. With Copernic, you have to ability to index a category on demand.

Searching

A major distinction between the two programs is how the user performs their search. Google uses its familiar search box in Internet Explorer. As a result, most users will be immediately comfortable with searching. As you can see from the screen below, Google simply added a tab and button for the Desktop.

Unfortunately, there isn't an Advanced Search feature. Instead, the user needs to use Google's syntax to filter their search. For example, if I want to do a query to return all MP3 files, I could enter the following into the search box:

filetype:mp3

I can also combine different syntaxes in the search box. Similarly, if I needed to find MP3 files without the word "Beatles" in the file or folder name, I could use:

filetype:mp3 -beatles

Copernic Desktop takes a more direct approach by using an application that isn't browser dependant. You first select a category button from the toolbar that represents various file types.

Once you've selected a category, the Refine Search section displays more filtering options. In the case of emails, you can further filter by: Subject, From, To, Importance, Folder or Date. One advantage Copernic offers is you can search file attachments.

Although there isn't a designated box to exclude specific words, Copernic's search box allows Boolean operators. The operators include AND, +, OR, NOT and . I prefer using the word equivalents, as I tend to place a space between the minus sign and my term. In other words, "beatles" is different from " beatles" and you may get different results.

Both programs do a good job of covering the major Microsoft file types. However, there are some programs not included which may deter users. Neither program indexes email from other popular applications such as Eudora, AOL, Pegasus and so on. There is also limited support for chat sessions, as Google will index AOL IM.

If you're apt to do file searches that include several files types, you might prefer Google. Google will return all results in the browser window regardless of file type. Since I usually know the file type, I prefer Copernic's approach. Although it may take me longer to run a multiple file type search, I only have to click the next category button. Copernic retains my search criteria and applies it to the next category.

Presenting the Results

Perhaps, the biggest difference between the programs is how they display results. For the most part, both programs returned the same results in seconds. There were several scenarios where one product returned more results than the other. The most noticeable examples were emails as Copernic Desktop had an issue with my having two Outlook profiles. According to Copernic's tech support, you must set a default profile for indexing. Google was not without its glitches as it listed duplicate results when searching media files. (Note: If your emphasis is Outlook, you should know that neither program performed as well as Nelson Email Organizer.)

As expected, Google's search results were similar to what we would see for a web search. If a web page was listed, a thumbnail image displayed to the right. Interestingly, Copernic Desktop only offered this feature for pictures.

By default, Google displays your results sorted by Date. At the top of the page, Google shows how many results for each category. The categories are defined as: emails, files, chats and web history. You can click a category to filter the results. Google also precedes each item with a category icon. For example, emails display a letter icon and web history files display the Internet Explorer logo.

There were some noticeable differences in how each product handles HTML files. For starters, both products only index web pages viewed with Internet Explorer. If you use Firefox or another browser, you will be disappointed when doing web history searches.

Regardless of where the HTML file resides, Google indexes the entire page and displays the results in Web History. Web History can also include HTML files that you created with some publishing program or even application help files.

Copernic's treatment of HTML files is a bit confusing. Like Google, the History category will only index pages viewed with Internet Explorer. However, only the page title is indexed. This means when you search History, your search term must appear in the title of the web page. For example, if I view a page from ESPN about the World Series that mentions the Red Sox only in the body, I won't find it when I do a History search for "Red Sox". However, if I saved that page to my hard drive as an .HTML or .HTM file, Copernic would find it if I search by Files.

Although Google's search results are fine for web pages, I found the format limiting for other search types. In particular, I disliked the way I had to navigate between pages. I also found the option to Sort by Relevance of little value.

Copernic Desktop offers a different approach by splitting the screen into several conditional sections. The top pane contains all your results with a vertical scroll bar. The default sort is Date, but the results can be resorted and grouped by the same data elements that display in the Refine Search section.

The lower pane is a Preview pane for most categories and displays the content for the highlighted entry. For pictures, a thumbnail image shows to the left of each file name. We found this feature useful since our file names don't always represent the picture.

The left frame includes a Details section with more information. Based on the file type, several actions are available. For example, with an email message you can Open, Reply or Forward the email. Google provides this functionality, but requires an extra step.

Another useful feature is Copernic Desktop filters as you type your search terms. With each typed letter, you can see your search results count decrease. This feature provided useful feedback as we could see if we needed to add search terms.

Defining Preferences

Both Google and Copernic allow the user to refine which items can be indexed. In the case of Google, they offer a Preferences page where you check which items to index. As with most Google interfaces, the choices are clear and intuitive. The choices are not as robust as Copernic Desktop as they concentrate on Microsoft programs such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and IE.

For people worried about personal data, Google makes a distinction between secure and insecure web pages. This is useful if you want to limit the indexing of personal data. In addition, they allow you to define web sites and folders that shouldn't be indexed. Copernic Desktop will restrict folders, but we did not see a way to restrict individual web sites.

An interesting Google Desktop preference was the ability to show your desktop results along with a web search. At first glance, you might think your information is on Google, but the desktop results are limited to your machine. Your personal data is not shared. The folks at Google have merely combined the results for your viewing.

Though Google's interface is clean, it does not offer as many options as Copernic Desktop. Using the Copernic's Options dialog, you can refine your settings by folder and file type. For example, because I often work with PHP and DLL files, I added these file types in the Advanced section. Although the program won't do text searching on DLL files, I can easily find which folders hold these files.

Conclusion

As a final note we should emphasize that desktop search is a hot area with financial implications for search engines. Consequently, we expect there will be many more players and improvements in all products in the near term. However, we would encourage you to try these new tools.

While we found benefits with both programs, we prefer Copernic Desktop as it better suited our needs. Although Google is a good contender, it did not offer us the flexibility and features we found most productive. Then again, this is only round 1 of a title fight.

Google Requirements

• Windows XP or Windows 2000, Administrative Privileges, 500MB free disk space, IE 5
• Cost: Free
• Version:Beta

Copernic Requirements

• Windows 98/Me/2000/XP; IE 5.
• Cost: Free
• Version: 1.1