Google has yet another tool out, currently in beta. Google Desktop is a program that indexes files and information on your personal computer, and makes it easy to search through. Windows currently lets you search for file names, but Google Desktop lets you search for the contents of files, e-mail, AIM conversations, and visited web pages. One big negative for me right now is that Google Desktop will not support Mozilla based browsers, but hopefully this will change quickly as the beta progresses. I haven’t been able to try it out yet because I’m away from my dorm room and all I have is my Powerbook which already has this functionality built into OSX 
The indexing of information for quick searching is a feature that Microsoft initially touted as a main feature of the upcoming Longhorn operating system, the successor to Windows XP. However, Microsoft has fallen behind on development, and have now moved the file indexing system back to be released as an update after the release of Longhorn. From the looks of this, it appears that Google is offering these advanced search features for you in Windows XP today. Of course, there are people who are afraid of privacy issues and abuse of power by Google… Personally, I still trust Google. They surely haven’t let me down yet. So far they have provided the best web search, a great IE browser bar that hasn’t resorted to dirty tactics to get installed, and Gmail, which while still in beta, currently serves as my main e-mail service. Maybe I’m setting myself up for trouble, but until Google shows that it has any ill-intentions I am going to trust them.
If you want to try out Google Desktop, you can download the beta for free from http://desktop.google.com/
If you have/do try it out, post some comments here on your experience.
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