| Wednesday, March 23, 2005 |
| Desktop Search Rivalry |
by tollie
Looking for a file, but you can't remember its name? Do you just remember what the file contains? Don't count on Windows "Find Files" to help out. What you can count on is a continuing competition between the search engine rivals - Yahoo, MSN, and the current top dog- Google.
Yahoo has a plethora of free and paid services, like Yahoo Mail, My Yahoo, Yahoo News, Yahoo Photos, Yahoo Maps, Yahoo Local, Yahoo Messenger, and announced this week: Flickr - a easy to use photo posting and sharing service that put Yahoo Photos underdeveloped features to shame.
Google has a better search rank method, Blogger, GMail, a now customizable Google News, Google Maps, Google Local, and Froogle.
Microsoft has a monopoly on default homepages with an inferior bundled browser.
And they all have a new desktop search offering. Who will be best? Truthfully, it's too early to tell.
What made Google's Search stand out and be so good on the internet doesn't apply when it comes to the computer, where files are not tied together by hyper-links, and Google's Desktop Search interface is sadly bland. Microsoft has a good looking interface, but why don't they just fix the lacking Windows' "Find Files" instead? -- because they want to make more money by directing you to and through MSN, which is the worst of the three. And Yahoo is just getting started, and already appears to have a cluttered interface.
Currently, none of these are offered to anything but Windows, but Mac users will soon have (expected in April) the best desktop search anyways, built into their operating system, OS X, called Spotlight.
Give one a try, if you want, and then vote in our forums to tell us which one you like.
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posted by Tollie Williams @ 2:06 PM   |
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