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 5.7.802.22438 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 4.09 in Softonic

Originally, ScanDir was developed to print a directory listing containing all photos on a CD. And that is about all that ScanDir version 0.1 could do. With the next versions, new and more advanced selections were possible (e.g. the use of Masks and/or multiple Strings and/or selections based upon file size and/or file date). Operations on the internal list of selected items were added. With ScanDir you can Delete, Copy, Move, Rename, Join, Split and change the Attibutes of selected files. The selected items list can be printed, saved as a plain ASCII text file or as a .CSV file.

Instead of scanning a drive, ScanDir can also process a pre-defined list of directories. It is also possible to specify an exclude list of directories which should be skipped during scanning.

The latest additions to ScanDir include the ability to View textfiles, Play media files, Open (run) executables and calculate an MD5 checksum. In version 1.0, the Rename function has new options.

This is what ScanDir has to offer:

• Multiple file selection criteria
• Print Scan results
• Save Scan results in plain text and/or .csv format
• Perform file operations (Del, Ren, Copy...) over multiple directories
• Navigate through directories in multiple ways (Bookmarks, Goto, Browse, Copy/Paste...)
• Copy one or more filenames (with or without path) to clipboard

Download ScanDir 1.1 beta 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

XLN Desktop Search is a search engine for your desktop. It will search for files containing the keyword that you type. It faster than the default Windows XP search engine because it uses the KMP algorithm and it is so simple.

Download XLN Desktop Search 1.0 in Softonic

This product will allow you to do a search on files, folders or both using Name, Contents, Size, Attributes or Dates with masses of other sub criteria to really refine the search.

The Name search for example will allow you to search for multiple files or filetypes using any combination of wildcard characters in a single search, while the contents search can search for keywords and/or phrases either on a line in a document or individually spread throughout the whole document with the added benefit of being able to see the matching results without ever having to open the files!

It can search both text related files (TXT,HTML,BAT,INI,FRM...etc) as well as binary files such as MP3 files and executables. Results are displayed in a table, complete with all available data relating to the file, including size, file type, dates (created/modified/last accessed), path and attributes. All returned results may be saved to a comma delimited file for import and manipulation in packages such as Excel.

There is also full printing available, both for printing a list of files/folders in the current directory as well as being able to print out the results from the search. Built-in Help screens allow an easy to see explanation of what everything does so you should find it a breeze.

Download Power Searcher 3.2.3 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

Locate saves names of all files in your hard drives to file database. After that you can locate files very quickly. This program works like updatedb and locate in Unix systems. Win32 based locating program also included.

Download Locate 3.0.7.3250 in Softonic

If you have many programs installed on your system you will notice a loss of overview (and time) in your start menu because of the huge amount of Shortcuts. QuickFind is your first aid.

It joins shortcuts from your start menu and your desktop together and puts those in a list box. You only need to enter a short term (e.g. the programs' name) and press Enter. In addition to that QuickFind can rename, delete or send shortcuts to different places (Desktop, Registry, Auto run...) and much more.

Download QuickFind 1.3.2 in Softonic

Seeker's has a ultra-fast file search engine on top of a powerful file search algorithm.

Seeker not only searches for files or within files, Seeker lets you replace text inside of files. Regular expression support and command line parameter support makes Seeker a complete search and replace solution. All results from Seeker can be viewed in one of four advanced reporting modes; Detailed file list, Structured report, Summary report, and Summary report with file list.

Download Seeker 3.0.7.9 in Softonic

Agent Ransack is a freeware professional file-search utility for finding information on your hard drive quickly and efficiently. Agent Ransack provides many features, such as regular expressions that allow complex, rule-based searches; immediate contents results view; and various wizards to walk the user through the search process. Users familiar with the Unix grep command will appreciate the ability to search the contents of files using regular expressions, as well as the ability to view found contents without having to open the files.

Download Agent Ransack 1.7.3 in Softonic

Watson gives computer users a new way of finding useful information by proactively seeking, gathering and delivering information as it's needed. Watson provides related information based on the contents of a web page or document being created. It allows its users to gain access to a wealth of information in context, without the trouble of searching.

For example, Watson can be used to find analyst reports while preparing a presentation, find product reviews while reviewing sales material, find primary research while authoring a report, or even to find blog entries about a recent news event. Watson works with almost any online information source to provide users with a powerfully customized list of information, from virtually unlimited resources.

Watson works seamlessly with leading information sources, including web search engines, intranet portals, subscription services, databases, corporate extranets, KM solutions and emerging desktop search applications. Watson proactively finds content and information in places not typically checked by users, so they can form a more balanced perspective drawn from a more diverse range of sources.

Download Watson 2.0 in Softonic