Copernic gives away desktop search tool for free

(September 1 2004) While all the search giants are working hard to get ready a "total search" appliance (i.e. at tool that combines web search with the possibility of finding files on your own computer), some companies are already delivering the goods.

Today Copernic has released a free desktop search tool that searches Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, Acrobat PDFs, Outlook emails, and all popular music, picture and video formats. Copernic also searches your browser history, favorites, and contacts.

In order to find the information you are looking for Copernic will build a separate database in the background -- while you are working. New files are added to the database as soon as you have saved them on your harddisk.

Copernic already has a web search tool available, called Copernic Agent, and in combination these two programs are getting close to the kind of search tool Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft is looking for. That being said, the Copernic Desktop Search tool also includes a separate section for searching the web.

You may use Copernic Desktop Search (or CDS for short) by launching a separate desktop search window or by using a special windows deskbar.

Copernic has a simple and easy to understand interface. By using pull-down menus you can actually build quite advance search queries. That being said, Copernic also supports Boolean search terms (AND, OR, NOT), nested searches (use of parentheses) and fixed keyword phrases (use of quotation marks).

There is a quick preview feature that lets you see the text in the document without opening the relevant program.

The main reason there is room for such desktop appliances is the fact that Microsoft have been unable to develop userfriendly and fast search tools for Windows and Microsoft Office. This is absolutely amazing, given the resources that company has available.

At the same time the increasing number of files is making it very hard to keep track of files only by using a well disciplined file hierarchy. Power users demand more efficient search tools.

Requirements: Windows 95 or higher (varies according to the different features), Internet Explorer 5.0 or later

Copernic Desktop Search

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