I’ve played around with Google desktop (and others) in the past and never had much success. They all slurped too much CPU, didn’t handle my OpenOffice files or PDFs, and came with interfaces that were either too simple, or far too complex.
My local Aussie PC mag, PC Authority did a feature on desktop search technologies this month and gave the editor’s choice to Yahoo! Desktop. I didn’t have much luck with Google desktop, but based on their review the Yahoo offering looked like it was worth for a spin. And it was…
I’ve gotta say that I’m pretty impressed. Handles all my OpenOffice docs, and displays them inside the search window just fine (note: you do have to download the filters pack which handles an extra 200 file types - don’t know why they didn’t just roll it into the base install). Ditto for the PDFs. (Screenshot below)
Haven’t been able to get it to index my IMAP store yet, but other that than it works a treat. Low CPU impact. Nice UI. Very stable. And I’m actually finding it very handy!
Big props to the Yahoo! Dudes. Very class offering.