Entered CNET Catalog: 08/27/2005
SKU: SERVGOOGLEDESKTOP2
Manufacturer: Google
Product summary
The good: Google Desktop 2 has a clean interface; quick access to online and local apps and files; more than 100 plug-ins, with more sure to come from third-party developers.
The bad: Windows only; personalized content appears random at times; control over RSS feeds is limited, and they don't integrate with Google Reader.
The bottom line: The brainy Google Desktop 2 does a mixed job anticipating the content you want. Still, it provides a handy link to files, apps, and Web sites that you access the most, and its search is powerful, too.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 11/05/2005
Installing Google Desktop 2 on our Windows XP computer went smoothly and took less than five minutes in our tests. If you're ultraconscientious about privacy, scrutinize the Preferences page via the Sidebar's top drop-down menu, which lets you choose what to hide or reveal to Google.
Google Desktop 2 may not please you if you feel too uneasy to entrust your computing and surfing habits to an outside party. Still, Google's privacy policy insists that "without your explicit permission," it won't collect your name, address, or the content of your computer. Therefore, uncheck Advanced Features if you don't want to send Google data about the Web sites you visit. From Preferences, you can also block specific files, folders, e-mail, and Web sites from being indexed. The Google Desktop 2 Enterprise edition gives network administrators full control over settings. See the user guide for more on encrypting your files. You may find Google Desktop 2 only minimally useful with Advanced Features turned off. For example, enabling Advanced Features allows the app to display personalized news and photos. We liked that this program didn't ask to reset our browser home page or add desktop icons.
Once Google Desktop 2 is open, the Sidebar appears in a narrow column within the right-hand edge of your screen. The gray interface is subtle and sparse, given its bevy of content. Modules include Photos, Maps, Google Talk, Email, News, Web Clips, Scratch Pad, Stocks, and Weather. To date, you can pick from hundreds of plug-ins to add more panels that display a PC system monitor, a calendar, content from iTunes, your American Express transactions, and more. Click any panel to expand details to the left of it. Click Maps to extend a miniwindow, where you can type in a search that opens a browser window to Google Local. To hide the Sidebar, click the top drop-down arrow to display the search box either as the Deskbar on the bottom of your screen or as the Floating Deskbar.
Desktop 2 lets you reject Sidebar features that might betray your secrets to passersby who glance at your screen. For example, Sidebar shuffles through recent photos, which could embarrass you, say, if snapshots of last weekend's costume party from your friend's Flickr account pop up at the office. To hide the Photos panel or other potentially sensitive portals, such as Email, just open the Add/Remove Panels window from the Sidebar's uppermost drop-down menu. You can also visit Options to filter content--helpful if you want to keep the Email module open but want to block certain messages from appearing.
Because we allowed Advanced Features to track our Web-surfing habits, Sidebar rotated through our content, with mixed results. Google says that Desktop 2 will reflect your surfing patterns within a day. Indeed, we found that the News portal displayed a host of tech stories from business publications after we spent an afternoon reading up on related subjects. Unfortunately, you can't tweak that content yourself or integrate with Google Reader, even though the News feature scans XML feeds.
The Maps panel provides a slide show based on locations and zip codes mentioned within the Web sites you visit. It was novel to see towns in Poland, China, and Saudi Arabia appear. Unfortunately, we hoped and tried but failed to find businesses (such as "restaurant, 94110") directly within the Sidebar; instead, we had to open a browser window. We ran into other quirks: the What's Hot panel displayed items that we had removed the previous day. And we found the learning curve steep for managing the random picks displayed by the Photos box.
Happily, Google Desktop Search made it a snap to find buried e-mail and lost documents. We like that the search bar provides a shortcut to other apps; for example, type in fir to immediately open Yahoo Desktop Search, Google's search tool doesn't organize data into handy tabs.
Google provides a thorough online knowledge base; we found the getting-started and troubleshooting sections well written and helpful. You can also ask questions via a Web-based form. We sent a query and received an immediate autoreply that stated, "We're putting most of our energy into improving Google Desktop, so we can't promise a personal reply to every message." Users of Google Desktop Enterprise can pay for a premium support package.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2out of 2 user reviews
Works well, locates the files as you type, other useful aplets like weather, Itunes, etc.
Pros: Good looking, present files as you type icons to diff. the different files. Other useful applets
Cons: Not nationalized for many countries, including Sweden
out of 2 user reviews
Works well, I like the thumbnales it provides for html pages
Pros: Nice interface, works just like Google
Cons: No image search & no advanced search
It works well for me and I use it on all my computers. It has saved me hours of frustration and I hardly ever use the find option in Windows anymore.
It's a pity that it does not have any advanced find filters like www.google.com
