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April 4, 2007

software

Google Desktop rampages onto the Mac

Posted Apr. 4, ’07, 8:42 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Software

GOogle DesktopYou may have heard the noise this morning at 12:01AM Eastern time, when the floodgates opened and Google Desktop for the Mac escaped its dark, abyssal prison into the real world, indexing files into its capacious maw left and right. Onlookers stood and gaped in awe as the behemoth of Mountain View slithered onto the altar of our most cherished platform.

Indeed, with the arrival of Google Desktop for Mac (Beta, natch), the end of days must be upon us. The previously Windows-only software package brings Google’s expertise in searching to the files on your Mac. Google Desktop will search your hard drives and iDisk, your email, your GMail (with some configuration), addresses, and web history. It also offers the ability cache deleted files, thus enabling you to retrieve content from files you may have wiped from the face of your computer. While that terrible power could be used for evil, it’s also super handy for plucking that crucial report from the netherworld that lies beyond the Empty Trash command.

Will this tear users away from Spotlight? Maybe: so far, Google Desktop has been snappy for me in a way that Spotlight isn’t. But I don’t find myself searching for things that much, so I’m not sold. And while Google Desktop functions as a basic sort of launcher, I don’t see users of LaunchBar, Butler, or Quicksilver giving up their apps. Look for more on Google Desktop later today.


2 Comments

Walt Basil said:

Before anyone downloads and installs “free” software from search giants, I always suggest to comb over the Terms Of Use. My father always taught me that there was no such thing as a free lunch, and that especially applies here. Good software comes at a price. For Google’s software, that price is your information, which is why I have never used a toolbar or applied for a gmail account though I’ve had numerous invites. Every business’ bottom line is the almighty dollar, franc, yen, whatever. Every decision made will be to support the increase of that bottom line. What is Google’s business? The searching, cataloging, indexing, and sharing of information. Any “free” offerings from a search engine giant will be used as a way to further their purpose. They will not offer something for free without getting something out of it.

Reading their ToU tells me that my email, web searches, bookmarks, etc will all be indexed and governed by their overall privacy policy, which states that your personal information can be processed on servers in the US and other countries, even given to third parties. And they reserve the right to change the policy without notifying users of that change. It’s up to the individual users to frequently check out the policy to see if it has changed. Check out their privacy policy here:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m saying look into it and make an informed decision rather than blindly adopting a search engine’s latest free offering. Maybe you’ll be comfortable giving up some insignificant information about your browsing habits and email. Maybe you don’t consider it insignificant.

Most news agencies are more than happy to provide info on the latest and greatest offering from Google. But none of them will tell you about the fine print of what you are actually accepting.

April 4, 2007 9:05 AM
Juha Haataja said:

One more way of searching for things. I'm using Butler as a search tool and launcher - Quicksilver seemed to cause too much problems and slowdown.

Spotlight is slow on a 2.5 year old iBook. Perhaps Google Desktop does better. It has indexed so far only 58 000 files, and works ok as a search tool. Integration to the Google browser search is nice, at least.

April 4, 2007 10:29 AM

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