Google Desktop

Infobox_Software
name = Google Desktop



caption = The GDS Sidebar sits on the user's desktop and displays relevant information. (Google Desktop on Vista)
developer = Google
latest_release_version = 5.8.809.23506
latest_release_date = October 4, 2008
operating_system = Cross-platform
genre = Desktop search
license =
website = http://desktop.google.com

Google Desktop is desktop search software made by Google for Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows. The program allows text searches of a user's e-mails, computer files, music, photos, chats, Web pages viewed, and other "Google Gadgets."

Features

In January 2008, Google Desktop features the following functionality:

File indexing

After initially installing Google Desktop, the software completes an indexing of all the files in the computer. And after the initial indexing is completed, the software continues to index files as needed. Users can start searching for files immediately after installing the program. After performing searches, results can also be returned in an Internet browser on the Google Desktop Home Page much like the results for Google Web searches.

Google Desktop can index several different types of data, including email, web browsing history from Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, office documents in the OpenDocument and Microsoft Office formats, instant messenger transcripts from AOL, Google, MSN, Skype, Tencent QQ, and several multimedia file types. Additional file types can be indexed through the use of plug-ins.Cite web |title=All Indexing Plugins |accessdate=2007-10-22 |url=http://desktop.google.com/plugins/c/index/all.html?hl=en] Google Desktop allows the user to control which types of data are indexed by the program.

One unfortunate aspect for users with large hard drives: Google Desktop will only index 100,000 files per drive during the initial indexing period. If you have more than 100,000 files in a particular drive, Google Desktop will not index all of them during this initial period.Fact|date=August 2008

idebar

A prominent feature of Google Desktop is the Sidebar, which holds several common Gadgets and resides off to one side of the desktop. The Sidebar is available with the Microsoft Windows version of Google Desktop only. The Sidebar comes pre-installed with the following gadgets:
* Email - a panel which lets one view one's Gmail messages.
* Scratch Pad - here one can store random notes; they are saved automatically
* Photos - displays a slideshow of photos from the "My Pictures" folder (address can be changed)
* News - shows the latest headlines from Google News, and how long ago they were written. The News panel is personalized depending on the type of news you read.
* Weather - shows the current weather for a location specified by the user.
* Web Clips - shows recent posts from RSS news feeds.
* Google Talk - If Google Talk is installed, double clicking the window title will dock it to one's sidebar.

Like the Windows Taskbar, the Google Desktop sidebar can be set to Auto-Hide mode, where it will only appear once the user moves the mouse cursor towards the side where it resides. If not on auto-hide, by default the sidebar will always take up about 1/6 - 1/9 of one's screen (depending on the screen resolution), and other windows are forced to resize. However, the sidebar can be resized to take less space, and you can disable the "always on top" feature in the options. With the auto-hide feature on, the sidebar temporarily overlaps maximized windows.

Another feature that comes with the Sidebar is alerts. When the Sidebar is minimized, new e-mail and news can be displayed on a pop-up window above the Windows Taskbar.

Quick Find

When searching in the sidebar, deskbar or floating deskbar, Google Desktop displays a "Quick Find" window. This window is filled with 6 (by default) of the most relevant results from one's computer. These results update as one types so that one can get to what one wants on one's computer without having to open another browser window.

Deskbars

Deskbars are boxes which enable one to type in a search query directly from one's desktop. Web results will open in a browser window, and selected computer results will be displayed in the "Quick Find" box (see above). A Deskbar can either be a fixed deskbar, which sits in one's Windows Taskbar, or a Floating Deskbar, which one may position anywhere one wants on one's desktop.

Email indexing

Google Desktop includes plugins that allow one to index and search through the contents of local Microsoft Outlook, IBM Lotus Notes, and Mozilla Thunderbird email databases, outside of the client applications' built-in search functions. For Lotus Notes, only local databases are indexed for searching. Google Desktop's email indexing feature is also integrated with Google's web-based email service, Gmail; it can index and search the email messages in one's Gmail account.

Gadgets & plug-ins

Desktop gadgets are interactive mini-applications that can be placed anywhere on the user's desktop – or docked in the Sidebar – to show new email, weather, photos, and personalized news. Google offers a gallery of pre-built gadgets for download on the official website. For developers, Google offers an SDK and an official blog for anyone who wants to write gadgets or plug-ins for Google Desktop. An automated system creates a developer hierarchy called the "Google Desktop Hall of Fame", where programmers can advance based on their gadgets' number and popularity.

The SDK also allows third-party applications to make use of the search facilities provided by Google Desktop Search. For example, the file manager Directory Opus offers integrated Google Desktop Search support.

Release history

Google Desktop was originally developed to bring Google search technology to the desktop. Google Desktop received much attention because it may allow reverse engineering of Google's proprietary search algorithm.

;Microsoft Windows

*The first release of Google Desktop Search was released as a beta version on October 14, 2004. [ [http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/desktopsearch.html Google Press Center: Press Release ] ]

*Version 2 was released as a beta version on August 22, 2005. The new feature that distinguishes Desktop 2 from Desktop is the addition of Sidebar, a panel that displays personalized information, which can be placed on either side of the Windows desktop and can display real-time news, e-mail, photos, stocks, and weather, among others. Sidebar includes a search box that can search just the PC or Google's other search types (like Web, Images, News, Groups.) Google Desktop 2 graduated from beta on November 3, 2005. New features include a sidebar plug-in for Google Maps and more plug-in developer support. [ [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/desktop-grows-up.html Official Google Blog: Desktop grows up ] ]

*Google Desktop 3 Beta was released on February 9, 2006. It includes support for searching multiple computers on a network. [ [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/new-on-your-desktop.html Official Google Blog: New on your Desktop ] ] Google Desktop 3 graduated from beta on March 14, 2006. Notable in this version is the quick search box, which appears anywhere on your desktop after pressing "control" twice. [ [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/stay-in-ctrl-ctrl.html Official Google Blog: Stay in Ctrl Ctrl ] ]

*Google Desktop 4 Beta was released on May 10, 2006. It features Google Gadgets, modules that can deliver an array of information. It also introduces option to automatically remove deleted files from search results. [ [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/yes-we-are-still-all-about-search.html Official Google Blog: Yes, we are still all about search ] ] Google Desktop 4 graduated from beta on June 27, 2006.
*Google Desktop v4.5 was released on November 14, 2006, adding a transparency aesthetic to the sidebar and "floating" gadgets. The graphic interface of the sidebar was also enhanced with more stylized icons for news, stocks, weather, photos, etc. Release 4.5 also added support for Windows Vista.

*Google Desktop 5 Beta was released on March 6, 2007.
* Google Desktop v5.1 (the first post-Desktop 5 Beta release) is made available for download on 2007-04-27.Cite web |title=Latest Updates for Google Desktop |url=http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=58591&ctx=sibling]
* Google released Desktop v5.5 on 2007-10-02.
* Google Desktop v 5.7 as of 2008-08-22 .

;Mac
*On April 2007, Google released Desktop 1.0 for Mac OS X, which can function alongside the Spotlight search tool in Mac OS X v10.4. [cite web |date=2007-04-04 |url=http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2007/04/google-desktop-for-mac_04.html |title=Google Desktop for Mac |author=Mike Pinkerton |work=Official Google Mac Blog |accessdate=2007-04-19]
*On November 29, 2007, Google released Desktop v1.4.0.826 beta for Mac OS X [cite web |date=November 28, 2007 |url=http://desktop.google.com/support/mac/bin/answer.py?answer=64429&topic=11286#current |title= "Where can I obtain a list of known issues or release notes?" - "Current Version" |author=Google |work=Desktop for Mac Help Center |accessdate=2007-11-29] , which plugs into Dashboard for Gadgets support.

;Linux
*Google released Desktop 1.0 for Linux on June 27, 2007. [cite web |title=Google Desktop for Linux |url=http://desktop.google.com/linux/download.html |author=Google |date=2007-06-27 |work=Google Desktop for Linux |accessdate=2007-07-27] It currently features the basic functionality of the Windows version but not the sidebar functionality.
*Google added 64-bit support to the Google Desktop for Linux with version 1.1.1.0075, which was made available for download on 2007-12-18.Cite web |title=Where can I obtain a list of known issues or release notes? |publisher=Google Inc. |url=http://desktop.google.com/support/linux/bin/answer.py?answer=72747&topic=11377]

Criticisms

Security

In February 2007, Yair Amit from Watchfire found a series of vulnerabilities [ [http://download.watchfire.com/whitepapers/Overtaking-Google-Desktop.pdf Overtaking Google Desktop ] ] [ [http://www.owasp.org/images/a/a1/OWASP_IL_7_Overtaking_Google_Desktop.pdf Overtaking Google Desktop (alternative link)] ] in Google Desktop that could allow a malicious individual to achieve not only remote, persistent access to sensitive data, but in some cases full system control as well. The significant impact and the ease of exploitation forced Google to change some of Google Desktop's logic in Google Desktop version 5.

Privacy

Many privacy and civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have concerns that personal information on people's computers could readily be copied from users' hard drives.Fact|date=October 2008

Google Desktop version 3 contains certain features that raise serious security and privacy concerns. Specifically, the "share across computers" feature that introduces the ability to search content from desktop to desktop greatly increases the risk to users' privacy. If Google Desktop V.3 is set to allow "Search Across Computers", files on an indexed computer are copied to Google's servers. The potential for information stored on their computers to be accessed by others if they enable this feature of Google Desktop v. 3 on their computers should be seriously considered. The EFF advises against using this feature. [ [http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2006/02/09 Press Releases: February, 2006 | Electronic Frontier Foundation ] ] Also, those who have confidential data on their work or home computers should not enable this feature. There are privacy laws and company policies that could be violated through the installation of this feature, specifically, SB 1386, HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA and Sarbanes-Oxley. [ [http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044246,39311126,00.htm More worries about Google Desktop 3 - Internet - News - ZDNet Asia ] ]

Other more far reaching concerns arise around the packaging and end user license agreement - specifically the level of intrusion on the local machine and the disclaimers that users implicitly agree to future changes in the license agreement without actually being able to see them immediately. [http://rixstep.com/2/20070621,00.shtml Google Desktop Tracked: Terms of Service (Welcome to Google)] [http://rixstep.com/2/20070621,05.shtml Google Desktop Tracked: The Aftermath]

Resource use

Although there have been known problems with the GoogleDesktopCrawl.exe process, [ [http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12661&topic=215 Google Desktop is using up 100% of my CPU. What can I do? ] ] lately the presence of smart indexing has improved the use of resources so this is less of a problem now.Fact|date=January 2008 As a default setting, after the user installs the application, files, emails and other data will be indexed at once, in a one-time process. It occurs only when the user's computer is idle for more than 30 seconds and it will usually be complete in several hours. After the one-time indexing, the index is kept up-to-date based on user actions and preferences.

Internationalization/Keyboard

Besides the key combination advertised on the preferences page (hitting Ctrl twice) Google Desktop's Quick Search Box can be launched with a shortcut "Alt Gr + g", Alt Gr, however, is the standard key to input diacriticized letters on a QWERTY keyboard, e.g. Ģ/ģ in the Latvian language. Even though it can't be disabled on the preferences page, it can be done through editing the Windows Registry. [ [http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=37219 What shortcut keys are available with Google Desktop? ] ]

Outlook indexing

There had been some issues with Microsoft Outlook indexing [ [http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=11602 Outlook Index and Search ] ] . Deleted email listings are not removed and require re-installing Google Desktop for any new archived mail to be listed. Several versions have been released to patch the Outlook indexing. [ [http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=known_issues.cs Latest Known Issues for Google Desktop] ]

ee also

*Desktop search
*List of desktop search engines
*List of Google services and tools
*Comparison of widget engines

References

External links

* [http://desktop.google.com/ Google Desktop]