Google Desktop Review

Google Desktop Review
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Overview

The Google Desktop allows you to customize your desktop the way you like, add gadgets like Gmail, YouTube, Google reader, RSS readers, and much more.

This is an amazing application for those who have a lot of contacts, files, folders, and emails. The sidebar has a nice built-in to-do list and notepad, and integrating other gadgets is simply an effortless process.

Ease of Installation & Use (4 out of 5)

Installing the Google Desktop is a cake-walk. All you need to do is to visit desktop.google.com, click on the install button, and leave the rest to the application.

Using the Google Desktop is also fairly simple, and you don’t really have to break your head to understand how to install gadgets, and work with its basic functionalities.

It has cool features, and if you’re a tech geek, or someone who deals with hundreds of emails, contacts, and feeds, it is an ideal solution to integrate all your stuff and manage them from a common place.

Utility and Performance (5 out of 5)

When you take a look at the features of Google Desktop, you’ll find almost everything useful right from the Quick Search Box. Smart Indexing is the way you get the most relevant search results, down to the provision to recover files with cached copies and regular updates.

Smart Indexing

Soon after the installation is over, Google Desktop starts indexing everything from the local files on your computer down to the web history and emails. When your PC is left idle for thirty seconds, the app indexes everything, ensuring that the process of indexing doesn’t slow down your PC. However, the process continues for several hours, though again without affecting the performance of your PC.

Don’t Miss a Thing!

The application keeps updating the index every time you modify a file, receive a new mail, or delete something.

Recovering Accidentally Deleted Files With Cached Copies

Furthermore, it also keeps cached version of deleted files, and hence you may use these cached version to retrieve info from accidentally deleted files.

Customizing Sidebar and Plug-ins

To keep your Google Gadgets organized in your sidebar, you also have a control panel, which allows you to drag-and-drop your favorite gadgets, and hide/show the sidebar along with other application screens. So, the choice is totally yours; customize things the way you like!

What’s New in Google Desktop 5.9.911.3589 Version?

The Google Desktop 5.9.911.3589 adds support to latest version of Mozilla Firefox browser, and the Windows XP SP3 OS version, apart from full compatibility with Windows Vista and Windows 7. You can also see a new option to add preferences to display the deskbar towards the left of the taskbar.

What’s more, working with Outlook has been never so easy, and the most-noteworthy update in the Google Desktop version 5 is the Preview Window for search results, which saves your time on unnecessarily clicking the results, opening, and closing the unwanted stuff over and again.

The Bottom Line

The Google Desktop is one of the cool apps offered by Google, which allows you to index your hard drive, more like Google does it for the web pages. However, it slows down your PC operation by a considerable extent, and it can eat up lot of resources on the low-configuration machines.

You can download the Google Desktop 5.9.911.3589 here or install it directly from Google.

To learn how to use Google Desktop in Linux, follow this link.