Google Desktop Search supports Mozilla

A short while ago I posted something about a desktop search application called "Copernic", specifically the beta version 1.5 which now indexes Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.  At the time, Google’s Desktop Search didn’t index Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.  Google has just taken Desktop Search out of beta testing and, lo and behold, it now supports Firefox and Thunderbird.  I was going to post the news on SFX but I was beaten to it.

Engadget posted the news yesterday and asked a pretty good question:

Please note that it is now 2005, and prior to this we’ve seen precious few effective tools for implementing

full desktop search — and may we respectfully say, what the hell has taken so freaking long?!

Google had the following to say on their blog:

We’ve been listening to your suggestions, and this release is crammed

with our responses. You can now search your computer for PDFs and media

files like MP3s, JPGs and GIFs, video files and so on (Desktop Search

even indexes your media files’ meta-info, so you can search for artist

and file names, song titles, etc). And version 1.0 supports the

Thunderbird and Mozilla email clients, Firefox browser — and Chinese

and Korean languages. There’s a new floating deskbar you can place

anywhere on your desktop, too. To better protect your personal info,

Desktop Search won’t search password-protected Office files. And

serious geeks can now search cool new filetypes and create customized

apps with the Google Desktop Search API.

Something else I was pleased to see is that there are a couple plugins that extend Desktop Search even more.

Of course, many of the asute subscribers of SFX pointed out that Copernic

has been indexing Firefox and Thunderbird for sometime now.  It is a

good point.  It irks me that everything is so Microsoft-centric

(although I am taking a renewed shine to Microsoft products … kinda)

and support for Mozilla products in particular is more of an "add-on".

All of the above aside, I still like Google’s software.  I have the Desktop Search running at home and at work and it is much easier to find what I am looking for than trying to use Windows XP’s built in search facility.