If you use Windows XP, there’s a product you should get while you still can. Google Desktop is a useful way to search all the documents you have on your own computer, instantly. You may be familiar with the search built into XP, and how slow and basic it is. Google’s Desktop brings their Web-search speed to your own computer.
OK, it is getting to be a bit obsolete. More modern operating systems have similar fast searching built in. And there is an alternative from Microsoft called Windows Desktop Search. But I liked the Google product best, and in less than two weeks they’re not going to let us have it any more. Boo.
As the link shows they’ve in fact discontinued the whole Google Pack, of which this was just one part, along with a whole lot of other projects that were far less popular. That’s a shame I think. It was always a good place to point people to get some essential software from a source they could trust. (We still do trust Google, don’t we? Basically I mean.)
Sure the links are still there, but the package had a mechanism to keep them updated for you. It was all very beginner-friendly. (You can still get it from here, but there’s little point if the update system is going to stop.) It was an endearing little feature of Google’s corporate personality, I found it quite useful over the last few years, but now it’s gone.
And no, it never did get out of beta.
Related articles
- Google Kills Aardvark, Which It Bought For $50 Million Last Year (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)
- Google, Amid Season of Changes, Trimming Product Offerings (pcworld.com)
- Google Does A Full House Cleaning; Sunsets Notebook, Fast Flip And More (techcrunch.com)