Google has released a beta of their Desktop Search for Windows, allowing you to search through office documents, web pages, chat logs and email, and display it in your web browser.

A beta of the tool (tiny 400kb) is available here (http://www.desktop.google.com).

Before you install it, you should perhaps read this review to get an idea what the new tool is all about: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3421651

I installed this yesterday and played around with it. Amazing. I found stuff on my hd I had no idea I had. Now if they'll expand what file types they search, this might be the cool app/tool of the year...

Gary, you should probably read Google Desktop privacy branded 'unacceptable' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/google_desktop_privacy/) over at The Register. I am sure I won't allow Google to get any information from my hdd or local hdd search behavior.

Edit: Another interesting directly related discussion at Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/15/1840215).

I agree, and I don't allow Google to do this. If you use GD on a private machine, opt out of sending personal info, and don't mix private/public searches, then I'm convinced (based on other stuff I read before installing) that it's effectively sealed off from Google. The dangers mentioned occur when a machine is not public and when one opts to mix Web searches with desktop searches (as I'm sure some folks will).

Of course, this is based on what they say they won't do, etc., so there's always some measure of suspicion along those lines.

Sigh.

Google's opt-out doesn't opt you out of all of the information it sends, only some of it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32109-2004Oct14.html). It does aggregate your Google and computer usage, and sends that back for analysis with their internal tools, and shares that aggregated info with their customers and partners. "Once the Google search technology is installed for free on a personal computer, it will transmit basic data daily about usage patterns. For example, it will tell the company how often Google is being used to search personal computers, how often it is used to search the Web, and how often simultaneous searches are done. Google lets users opt out of sending some usage data, but not all of it.

However, Mayer said the data collected will be aggregated so that the company knows where to focus its efforts on upgrading the search technology. She emphasized that the daily up-loading will not transmit any personal information to Google and said it is typical for major software programs that offer voluntary upgrades and fixes for bugs to capture that sort of information as a matter of routine."

Now it is even 'mainstream-official': CNN.com is suggesting (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/10/20/spying.with.google.ap/index.html) that Google's new search tool could prove to be a privacy risk when installed on shared computers.