Google Desktop Search for Linux available today

Only a day after I complained over no Google precense in desktop search on Linux, Google replied: Google Desktop Search now available for Linux. (As many readers pointed out.)

As I stated only yeasterday Google, I welcome you. Please invade my privacy. Just make your desktop search available for Linux! I felt I had no choice but to give it a fear try:

Search results

The results are so much better than any other desktop search tool available. Beagle sucks. Meta Tracker sucks. (Searchmonkey is not even worth mentioning.) Google rocks. I want to keep this short so here it is: Google produces the best graphical desktop search results on Linux. Period.

OpenDocument + Google = ❤

Out of the box support for ODF was a plesent surprise! I did not expect it, but of course Google needs to show open formats some love when entering the Linux software market.

These formats are also GDSL strongest side. It does PDFs very good too. Preformance with other formats varied.

I got excactly the document I intended to find as the first result (!) on the first try (!) with every search! This is indeed impressive as I have got more than two hundred documents stoerd on my local computer. Many of them on the same subject.

Hopefully this means that OpenDocuments will show (properly) in thier web searches too soon!

Emails

The most disapointing thing about GDSL is that it does not index emails from any other email client than Thunderbird. Being a hardcore KMail user and fan this is of course an issue.

Privacy

I uninstalled the application after an hour. The results where better, it did work better, but… I want my privacy. I am not ready for having Google's watching eyes on absolutely everything I do. Too bad, actually. But this is the way it has to be.

Privacy concerns killed another great product.

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One comment

The fact that the document you intended to find on your first result over various queries are either luck, or you've tagged it properly compared to your other documents.

Google Desktop doesn't know what you want in your mind, it only tries to find the most relevant document that matches your query.

I'm sure it also list the most used files more often, as files you've opened more often or freshly created are more relevant to you.

But whats surprises me is if Linux already doesn't have a feature like this? A native one, I mean. If so, it should suffice just great?

I remember how thrilled and excited you were when Apple introduced Spotlight, and you tested it on your newly installed Tiger - I'm sure some Linux distributor/developer (what term do you use in the Linux world?) have seen what Spotlight does, made it better and implemented it?

Comment by Magnus Damli at 2007-06-29 @595.