Desktop Searches

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Have you used a Desktop Search?

Yes
1
11%
No - But I plan to at some point
0
No votes
No - I'm just not interested
2
22%
No - I don't trust these evil companies with my data
3
33%
What on earth is a Desktop Search?
3
33%
 
Total votes: 9

InactiveX
BeOS Forever
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Desktop Searches

Post by InactiveX »

The Latest Big Thing™ seems to be the "Desktop Search". Google, AOL, MS, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves all now have, or will have, competing products.

Have you used one? Do you intend to? Are you worried about the privacy implications?

I have just started using the offering from Copernic - Click Here - I chose this one because I have been impressed with their search products before, and judged them to be the "least untrustworthy".

Upon installing, the software indexed my disk, which took approximately one hour. Since then, I have found that queries are dealt with very efficiently, particularly with results from within instruction manual .pdf files.

I'd like to know you BP6ers' opinions on all this. Anyone?
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purrkur
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Post by purrkur »

I think I will wait quite a while before trying one out. I am not sure I want to let these companies in to my computer, or at least not yet. Maybe there will be an open source alternative where you can be certain that the company in question isn't gathering data from your desktop, keyboard reading etc. Until then, slocate, find and grep will be my friends in the Linux world.
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Billl
Posts: 211
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 1:52 pm
Location: USA

No Way

Post by Billl »

I feel even more strongly then Purrkur on this one. Not in this lifetime! These Bastards already know too damn much. I'll keep my data to myself thank you.


Billll
davd_bob
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Post by davd_bob »

I didn't know what Desktop search was. Still kinda fuzzy on it. It sounds like just another access point the "bad guys" will find it pretty easy to exploit.

I feel pretty safe because I stopped using 'online' for anything about my identity or finiances nearly a year ago. I even pay my eBay wins by money order instead of PayPal. I STILL wont be using Desktop search at this time.
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InactiveX
BeOS Forever
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Joined: Wed Jul 24, 2002 8:25 am
Location: UK

Post by InactiveX »

Some interesting comments. Thanks folks.

The privacy implications did bother me. There's no way I'd trust MS, AOL or Yahoo! with my data, even if they promised not to snoop.

Taking the view, however, that if I wanted 100% privacy then I'd have to disconnect from the 'net, I decided to give it a try. I have been wary of Gmail because of privacy worries, and shun internet banking because of security fears and fraud, but unlike those two examples, a Desktop Search offers me something new - a fast and sophisticated way to search for data on my hard disk.

purrkur: I agree with you on the need to find an open-source solution. I hope that one will be forthcoming very soon.

Incidentally, BeOS's BFS file system, with its attributes capability, has always offered the rapid, sophisticated searching which I am now experiencing in Windows. Sadly, the OS hasn't stayed up to date (at least until the OSS BeOS clones become viable) so I spend a lot of time in Windows nowadays with my audio apps.

Please keep the comments coming.
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purrkur
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Post by purrkur »

InactiveX wrote:Incidentally, BeOS's BFS file system, with its attributes capability, has always offered the rapid, sophisticated searching.....
Yeah, BeOS was way ahead of its time with its excellent file system. It is funny to note that parts of what WinFS is supposed to be was already found in BeOS many years back and Microsoft cannot even deliver WinFS on time!

The Reiser4 file system that is being currently built into the kernel (and is there already but with limited functionality) will deliver on those same features (and more) as well.

I will admit that I am a Gmail user. However, the mails I am receiving there are not really private. I got myself a private account for that, although if somebody really wanted to read mails coming from there then it wouldn't be too hard either. Best way would be to have your own mailserver and use PGP or similar to encrypt messages if you want real privacy that is.
2x533MHz@544MHz, 2.0V
640MB PC100 memory
Realtek RTL-8139 NIC
Maxtor 6Y080L0 80GB hdd
Debian Linux stable with 2.4.8 kernel
davd_bob
Confused
Posts: 1043
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 2:30 am
Location: Houston, TX

Post by davd_bob »

Hey guys,
Google just made an announcement that they have implemented a "fix" to the security on their Desktop Search software. Students at Rice University here in Houston actually did the programming work as a class project...of course Google didn't mention that fact. It was on the local news at 9:00pm today.
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.

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