More than two years after Google launched its Google Desktop Search for Windows application, limited initial support for the Linux platform is available. Of the top three major search engines which offer desktop search software (Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft), Google is the first to try to win the hearts and minds of both Macintosh and Linux users. Yahoo and Microsoft solutions are both limited to Windows.
For Google, search is strategically important, wherever it happens.
Why are the search engines offering free desktop search software?
Desktop search is strategically important to search engines. Personal computer users searching for information with a desktop search application are just one click away from seamlessly integrated web search.
Controlling desktop search means controlling traffic to a web search engine – a very lucrative business as demonstrated by Google’s economic results.
Google vs. Beagle
So how does Google’s Linux desktop search engine compare to the current champion, Beagle? The first observation is that Google’s source data support is very limited – too limited. The most obvious problem is a lack of parsing, indexing and retrieval support for Microsoft’s office file formats – a big surprise given that Beagle handles these ubiquitous (but not standard!) formats rather well. Those in the know may not like Microsoft’s undocumented file formats, but pragmatists need to coexist with them. For now, Google’s search is limited to cataloging their file and path names.
Web 1.0 and 2.0 support missing
Despite Google’s intimate knowledge of all things web, support for indexing and retrival of web 1.0 chat histories, such as those produced by Pidgon (ex Gaim), and web 2.0 RSS feed readers, such as Liferea, is missing. On the desktop side, Evolution contact and task information is ignored.
Recommendations
Linux enthusiasts are likely to have mixed feelings about the arrival of Google on their desktop. On the negative side, Google’s software is proprietary. On the positive side, Google’s contextual results snippet, similar to that found with web search, is far superior to that currently offered by Beagle. It will be interesting to compare relevancy rankings – long Google’s strong point.
Both Google and Beagle support indexing of Thunderbird E-mail messages – and both take over your system’s resources in the process of doing so.
Personally, I’ll probably use both. Beagle for the breadth of source data supported; Google for the quality of results snippets.
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