A Google desktop in your computer

With the launch of the Google desktop 3.0, Google is making a clear statement about its desire to conquer your desktop. The company is not only developing the best web services, they also want to provide the best desktop productivity tools.

To make this statement clear, Google announced this week a serious upgrade to its desktop search, which is now much more capable. The main improvements are in two fronts: the looks and the search functionality.

The look-and-feel of Google desktop 3.0 has been improved, and now it supports content created by third-party developers, thanks to the recently released Google desktop API. Plug-ins can be created to provide indexing for new file types, helpful applications, or just to implement a cool game such as tic-tac-toe. This make Google desktop much more capable of adapting to the needs of its users.

The second area, desktop search, has been completely revamped. Now, users are allowed not only to search files locally, but also saving this information in the Google servers, so that they can access the data from any computer they may be connected. The end result is having a copy of your files with you at any time, so you can consult your information from anywhere in the world, just entering your Google password.

All this flexibility has a price, however: you must be willing to let Google keep your information in their servers. Although this may look scary for some people, its not so bad if you consider that everything that you receive by email (if you use a Gmail account) or that you search in the web is already archived with Google. The feeling of total privacy these days may look as distant as it has ever been. Remember, however, that since the Internet was created all your information is in some way handled by servers you do not control...

Anyway, Google desktop 3.0 is an extremely interesting piece of software. Even if you don't want to use all its features, it will provides much better functionality than the previous version, and this is certainly a good reason to update.

Technorati Tags: Announcement, Google, Software