The Google Desktop application allows users to search their desktop content quickly and easily. Praised for its ingenuity and criticised for its intrusiveness, Google Desktop brings the power of Google’s search engine technology to your PC.

After installing the application, you’ll have to give it some time to index the files on your PC, including emails, photos, chats, contacts and calendar events. Google Desktop will index the first 10,000 words in the first 100,000 documents on your PC. The application supports the majority of file types and you can decide which ones to index, or omit protected files, using the preferences menu.

In its latest version, which is compatible with Windows Vista, Google Desktop has been given a new transparent look, providing a pretty sleek feel to your PC. Your search results will appear in your browser (in the familiar Google web page format) and a small preview button allows you to view results without actually clicking on the corresponding link. Results are as precise as we’ve come to expect from Google searches, however we were slightly disappointed to learn that the application doesn’t offer logical 'OR' support or substring search. On another note, Google Desktop is not limited to your PC as you can cross index content from multiple machines and share some panel items with your friends.

Google Desktop is not only about search, though. Joining a marketplace already occupied by Apple’s Dashboard Widgets and Yahoo! Widgets, Google Desktop can be fitted with any number of little gadgets. These mini apps perform all kinds of functions, from fetching your mail to jotting down notes or checking up on your local weather. There are hundreds of gadgets to choose from to customize your desktop bar. Our personal favorites are: Google Translate, the Skype plug-in to check your credit and call your contacts, “Am I Blocked” to find out who’s blocked you on IM, Workspace to quickly move between tasks, System Stats to monitor your PC and Games, a selection of Flash games like Tetris and Moonlander.

When running, we found Google Desktop to use up around 30 MBs, but that can quickly increase if you add more gadgets to it. The application is also constantly re-indexing your files to incorporate your modifications and new elements. However you should rarely feel your PC slowing due to indexing.

When you’re dealing with Google, however, you know the main criticism will be about security. Because Google Desktop indexes all your documents, you’re basically opening up your PC and all your personal files to the Moutain View company. What some users fear is that Google could one day take advantage of that access or that a bug in the application would allow malicious users to infiltrate your PC and steal information.

While the intrusiveness of Google Desktop will give some users pause for thought on installing the app, Google Desktop is highly effective and simple to use. The gadgets you can add to its sidebar may not all be essential, but many of them are quite fun and original and let’s face it, the sidebar looks good. Give it a go if you think your PC is a mess and you need quick access to anything.

Download Google Desktop 5.8.809.8522 in Softonic

Xbox Commander is an advanced yet easy-to-use program allowing you to browse your Xbox, the computer's drives or an FTP server. The application lets you create a backup from any directory on your hard disk drives in Xbox ISO (xISO) format. These Xbox ISO files can be either backed-up to a CD or DVD.

Any downloaded or created Xbox ISO files can be extracted to the Xbox. The program also gives you the ability to upload any file or directory from the computer to the Xbox or FTP server. The app can make use of the "Boost Mode" of the Avalaunch dashboard. This makes it possible to upload the contents of the Xbox iso at speeds up to 11 MB per second.

Download Xbox Commander 2 in Softonic

Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) brings the power of a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use search engine right to your PC and allows you instantly to search files, emails, and email attachments stored anywhere on your PC hard drive. It executes sub-second searching of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, Acrobat PDFs, and all popular music, picture and video formats. CDS also conducts a desktop search of your browser history, favorites, and contacts.

Keeping the index “fresh” is a key factor in any search experience, and CDS maintains the freshest search index in the industry. With Copernic's patent-pending “Instant Indexing™” technology, new and updated files are indexed the instant they are saved to disk (Windows XP/2000/NT only), and emails are indexed the instant they arrive (Outlook only). You can't get fresher than that!

CDS was designed to be the world's lightest and most efficient desktop search with respect to CPU utilization. Copernic's exclusive patent pending “Smart Indexing™” technology monitors user activity and indexes only during idle time, assuring that CDS will never slow down your computer.

CDS features an exclusive fault-tolerant desktop search index. This means that if, during the course of the year, your search index has grown to 50,000 documents, you won't wake up one morning and find that your entire index has been corrupted, or has crashed, forcing you to restart the whole indexing process from scratch. With Copernic's patent pending fault-tolerant technology, your entire PC will always be searchable whenever you want it to be.

CDS takes your search terms as you type and searches your entire hard drive. As you add more terms to your search, you see your search results narrowing down right before your eyes. As you scroll through the results list of files or emails, a preview is shown on the bottom of the screen. Just click “open” and the file or email opens using its original application. Nothing could be simpler!

Download Copernic Desktop Search 2.3 in Softonic

Yahoo! Desktop Search is a free, downloadable search application that enables you to find any of your files, emails, attachments, instant messages and contacts. Whether you're looking for something online or within your own personal stuff, Yahoo! Desktop Search helps you find it. Since it's powered by Yahoo! Search, one of the leading Web search engines, you know it's fast and it's safe.

Download Yahoo! Desktop Search 1.1.1852je in Softonic

Now you can create your own customized search engine so your visitors can easily search your Website for what they are looking for. CoffeeCup Flash Website Search is the only software of its kind. Just enter your Website address and the software reads your Website to create a database of all your pages. Just add the cool Flash Search Box to your pages and your vistors will be able to search your Website with power and ease - no programming necessary!

All you do is follow the easy steps through the software and it will automatically read your Website, build the database, and upload the required files to your server. You can even customize the layout, colors and fonts of your search results, add your own HTML header and footer files, and more. You can easily match your existing Websites look and feel in just a few minutes!

Download CoffeeCup Flash Website Search 5.0 in Softonic

Windows Desktop Search (WDS) helps you find virtually anything on your PC or your networked drives including e-mail messages, calendar appointments, documents, and more. Searching your computer is now as fast and easy as searching the Web. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

• Windows Desktop Search helps users quickly find and retrieve e-mail messages, documents, and many other file types located on their PC and corporate network.
• Windows Desktop Search provides a familiar, integrated, and convenient search experience for Windows users.
• Search index does not create privacy issues or device performance concerns.
• Windows Desktop Search integrates with other Microsoft Search technologies.
• Desktop Search can find results from more than 200 common file types, including e-mails, documents, images, music, and video.
• The Preview Pane displays helpful summary information and rich previews for each result.
• Enables IT managers to quickly deploy, manage and extend across the enterprise.
• Desktop Search software is optimized with features that help IT managers easily customize, deploy, and manage the installation of desktop search across all users and computers in the organization.

Download Microsoft Windows Desktop Search 3.01 in Softonic

FileSearcher is a desktop application that offers an enhanced and comprehensive text search of desktop files. A first-class function of this program is the display of file snapshots taken during the searching process. This allows you to quickly preview files and stop searching as soon as you have located the correct files.

FileSearcher provides you with extremely powerful full text search with regular expressions. It also allows to search for file duplicates. Deleting or moving duplicate files helps to clean up disk space and manage files better. It is possible to find file duplicates by name, size and date of creation/access/modification.

FileSearcher can help backup files without duplicating them in archives. You can find only newly created or modified files for adding them to new archive. So this allows you to have one base archive and a sequence small additional archives only with new or changed files. It helps you to safe space on storage medium.

FileSearcher allows you to search for files by filename mask, date, full text or even inside ZIP archives. Once found, you have several options available to manage your files: open them, open the containing folder, cut, copy, rename or delete.

Download FileSearcher 1.3.2 in Softonic

One thing that's unavoidable with Windows is many duplicated files which serve little or no purpose.

However, did you know it was possible to find and replace at least those files that have been duplicated without going through them manually? Programs such as Duplicate File Finder can search files byte by byte and compare them so that you can have a better idea of which files you need and which ones you don't. The interface clearly presents you with the path names and locations of those files which appear to be duplicated. It's then up to you to decide which ones are duplicates and which one's aren't. The good thing about this program is that it's incredibly quick at searching - you'll wait for less than a minute for Duplicate Files Finder to return results. In addition, you can interactively delete files or create links and refine searches to the minutest of details.

A nice utility for cleaning up your hard drive or removing those files that you never even knew existed on your hard drive.

Download Duplicate Files Finder 0.44 in Softonic

tag2find helps you to find everything on your desktop by simply using tags. Directories & folders were the structure of the 20th century. Now it's time for something new - tag it!

You will find everything (documents, movies, images, music, etc.) on your desktop by simply using tags, a label or keyword that describes your file for making it easer to find. It does not matter where your files are stored on your disk, you will find them anyway.

With tag2find you do not need to have inflexible folder structures anymore: tagging frees your information.

Download Tag2find 0.10.1.3 in Softonic

As a recent switcher, I'm slowly discovering all the little wonders of MacOS X and starting to understand why the Apple OS has so many faithful supporters. However things are different at work, where I must still work with a PC on a daily basis. Luckily there are apps that bring a pinch of Mac taste to Windows users.

This is the case of WinLight, a Spotlight clone for Windows that enables you to search for files, folders and apps in a much easier, more comfortable way. WinLight is slightly similar to the original Mac Spotlight tool but still has a long way to go.

To begin with, results are not classified into categories as the original Spotlight. Also, it doesn't show a drop-down menu with results but just completes the word – only if you have written it before - and then opens a window instead, which is not quite as useful.

While WinLight may be a good replacement for the old-fashioned Windows standard search tool, I'm afraid it's not as good as the original Spotlight.

Download winLight 0.8 in Softonic

Archivarius 3000 is a full-featured application to search documents and email on the desktop computer, your local network and removable drives (CD, DVD). The documents can then be searched by keyword or using a query language.

Due to full Unicode support, Archivarius 3000 allows correct search in multilingual documents. For instance, a Greek-German bilingual document can only be handled in Unicode, otherwise Greek symbols and German diacritics would be lost.

File names are also in Unicode, which enable correct handling of Asian documents (Japanese, Chinese, Korean). Archivarius 3000 searches not only e-mail messages, but also attachments, including compressed ones. The following formats are supported: Outlook, Outlook Express, The Bat!, PocoMail, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, and those that are compatible.

Server mode allows you to search remotely and have remote access to your documents through any web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer). This mode can be switched on with a single mouse click.

Download Archivarius 3000 4.10 in Softonic

HandyFind is a faster, friendlier way to find words in documents and web pages. It finds words as you type so you'll find what you're looking for as soon as you enter enough letters. After using HandyFind for a short time, you'll find it such a quick way to get around that you start using it for navigating documents as well as just searching.

Take a look at what HandyFind has to offer:

• Find as you type in Internet Explorer, Notepad, Excel, Microsoft Word and more
• Much less cumbersome than the regular Find dialog
• Instantly jump to the next occurrence of your currently selected text or repeat previous searches
• "Click" on hyperlinks with your keyboard

Download HandyFind 2.0.9 in Softonic

Have you ever lost a file that you were sure was on your system? EF Find is a powerful search program for Windows that can search for not only lost files but also text, HEX sequences and regular expressions inside archives.

This is a great tool for those of you that want a certain document but simply can't remember the name of the file. So if you've written a document about networks but just gave the document a generic name, you can search for 'networks' in EF Find, and even if it's in a compressed file, it will find it. The range of files it can search is really impressive and extends to 7-Zip, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BZIP2, CAB, CPIO, GZIP, IMG, ISO (ISO9660), LHA, RAR, RPM, SFX, SQX, TAR, TBZ, TGZ, ZIP and ZOO files.

The interface is a simple GUI with the search bar at the top. You can also filter searches in various ways including to make it case sensitive and within certain folders. This program has proved so popular that it's now been translated into 23 languages which gives some measure of how useful it is. The only downside is that it can't search within documents that aren't compressed so as long as you've got lots of zipped-up files, you'll love this.

Download EF Find XP 4.20 in Softonic

Powerful search technologies concentrated in DVYGUN Smart Search provide instant search of your personal data stored anywhere on PC hard drives. You can easily search through Adobe Acrobat, Word and Excel documents , emails and attachments (Outlook/Outlook Express), all popular formats of archives, music, video and graphics.

Also searches web pages you've viewed, favorites pages (Internet Explorer) and contacts (Windows Address Book/Outlook). Even when your search index has grown up to 1,000,000 documents, the search will be constantly near sub-second.

Download Dvygun Smart Search 2.5.4.9 Beta in Softonic

Ava Find speeds up your daily computing experience by letting you find any file on your computer instantly. Open music and video files from any folder using convenient one-click browse buttons. Ava Find can list folders by size instantly, making hard-drive cleanup simple and easy. The Scout Bot feature lets you discover newly downloaded files instantly without the need to run a search. Ava Find includes free search functionality and includes a 30-day preview of Ava Find Professional features, such as the Scout Bot.

Download Ava Find 1.5.218 in Softonic

Index your files is an alternative way for you to index and search through all your files on local or networked drives. With plenty of stats about your files and various ways to manipulate them, Index Your Files will provide an extremely user-friendly and powerful way to manage your drives.

Download Index Your Files Home! 3.0 in Softonic

LookDisk is a search tool similar to that of Windows that lets you find files according to particular parameters but also includes a host of extra functions. These include the ability to search within compressed files and also to find duplicated files that may be using up space on your hard disk unnecessarily.

The search itself is quick and the interface of the program is simple, giving you the option to personalize it with your own style. On top of that you can save or print the list of results.

Download LookDisk 2.96 in Softonic

This program brings a fresh new perspective to searching for documents and images. GDS Images and Document Maps is a plug in which is supposed to help you find images and documents more easily. It's very useful in giving you an overview of information retrieved by the search and in helping you to isolate the group of document that you are looking for. It works by taking the results of a search and visually grouping related documents together so you can quickly identify the group that you are looking for. Document and images are displayed on a map, with related documents or similar pictures nearby.

When looking for images this approach can be convenient since images are indexed based on the name and path, which is usually not enough to determine the image's content. On the map, E-Mails and Word Documents are displayed as red dots on a blue background, the actual background intensities varies as peaks and valleys. Documents on a valley (dark area of the background) are likely to be more related to your document at the same distance on a peak. On the map images are displayed as thumbnails. You can pan the map with the left mouse button and zoom in with the slider on the left. Once the map displays a document, you can identify on the map all the documents similar to the one selected with a right mouse click.

This is an interesting tool although in reality, I found it took twice as long to find images and documents than usual. I can see that once used to it, it could be helpful but unless you're willing to spend a lot of time working with it, you'll probably end up more time trying to figure it out than actually finding your images and documents.

Download GDS Images and Document Maps 2.0 in Softonic

The idea behind NeoSearch is really good. This local search tool works just like the embedded search field in Vista's start menu, displaying results in real time as you type letters.

But this is still a very first version of the program and you can easily spot some issues that need to be fixed. To begin with, the app's window can't be moved. Then, the installation process is far from standard: it doesn't allow you to select the target folder and what's more, displays an annoying voice.

Search results (that is, the four most relevant ones) are displayed on the program's static window while the rest can be opened up in another one. You can click on folders or files to open them, but that's as much as you can do with the list.

On the upside, the scanning process is very fast and doesn't hog your system resources.

Download NeoSearch 1.00 in Softonic

Instant File Name Search is an effective search tool that helps you find any type of file on your PC or local network almost instantly. It does an initial index of all your drives which later on allows it to perform much faster searches. This index list must be maintained so that it is up to date and you can set the program to refresh each time it starts up.

It supports complete or incomplete names, wildcards and boolean operators. You can also set the program to exclude certain types of file or directories resulting in speedier results.

Download Instant File Name Search 1.7.5 in Softonic