Google, the world leaders for search engine also have their own Desktop Search Applications. Creditably Google have also made a native version of this famous desktop search for Linux and binaries for installing it in Ubuntu are easily available.

Google Desktop can be easily installed by download and using their .DEB installer. And installing it is just a double click affair. However a better way is by using CNR or Synaptic. You can follow this guide for setting up Google repository and using Synaptic/apt-get to install Google Desktop.

After installation you can launch it by going to Applications->Google Desktop->Google Desktop.

Google Desktop will index all your files and has the ability to search for keywords within the documents. Thus it is very useful for finding documents containing information you seek for.

Google Desktop sits in the notification bar and indexes all your documents. It also scans evolution for E-Mail and if you have a G-Mail account it works even better.

The default desktop search page is identical to Windows as expected and so is the Quick Search Box and the keyboard shortcut for launching the Quick Search is same as in Windows by default: Ctrl + Ctrl

You can see the screenshots below.

Preferences can be set by using an HTML page. You just have to right click on the Google Desktop icon in the notification bar and choose Preferences.

Bottom Line

Overall, Google Desktop is a good desktop search software. However unlike its Windows counterpart it lacks the sidebar which takes much of its appeal. It is well integrated in the desktop and did not slow down my PC on boot up either. But still Beagle feels better to use and it is open source as well and I would recommend Beagle over Google Desktop.

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