Copernic desktop better than Google desktop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrew Diamond
  • Start date Start date
A

Andrew Diamond

I've used both to index my disks. The google desktop just gives you a list
of files in the browser with hyperlinks. It gives back a laundry list of
hits that can be as long and as impractical as any google search.

Copernic desktop gives you the ability to search files vs email, etc. and
allows you to use full boolean operations (and, or, not, paranthesis - much
more powerful than google), allows you to specify file filters, have
explorer right click shell menus on the items, a preview pane, sort the list
of files by type, date, folder.

This isn't just a feature count. Simply put, I've found Google Desktop to
be pretty useless but Copernic Desktop has proved very useful.

Copernic Desktop does seem to have its faults: It ocassionally crashes
(well, at least for me). It doesn't happen very often. Oddly enough, much
to my surprise, that's not such a big deal. You just start it up again - no
harm, no lost work, so no big deal. It seems to start up wherever it was
when it crashed.

I just used it this morning to find some word perfect attachment that was
sent to me in an email Typed a word a bang the search was done out of 100GB
of used disk. Sorted by file type and there it was. Clicked on it and saw
it in a preview pane. I love it.
 
I've used both to index my disks. The google desktop just gives you a list
of files in the browser with hyperlinks. It gives back a laundry list of
hits that can be as long and as impractical as any google search.

Copernic desktop gives you the ability to search files vs email, etc. and
allows you to use full boolean operations (and, or, not, paranthesis
Click to expand...

Does it support the NEAR or NEAR xx operator?

I don't think anything without "near" can properly be termed "full"
boolean.
 
Andrew said:
I've used both to index my disks. The google desktop just gives you a list
of files in the browser with hyperlinks. It gives back a laundry list of
hits that can be as long and as impractical as any google search.

Copernic desktop gives you the ability to search files vs email, etc. and
allows you to use full boolean operations (and, or, not, paranthesis - much
more powerful than google), allows you to specify file filters, have
explorer right click shell menus on the items, a preview pane, sort the list
of files by type, date, folder.

This isn't just a feature count. Simply put, I've found Google Desktop to
be pretty useless but Copernic Desktop has proved very useful.

Copernic Desktop does seem to have its faults: It ocassionally crashes
(well, at least for me). It doesn't happen very often. Oddly enough, much
to my surprise, that's not such a big deal. You just start it up again - no
harm, no lost work, so no big deal. It seems to start up wherever it was
when it crashed.

I just used it this morning to find some word perfect attachment that was
sent to me in an email Typed a word a bang the search was done out of 100GB
of used disk. Sorted by file type and there it was. Clicked on it and saw
it in a preview pane. I love it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the review, Andrew.

2 other similar apps worth trying:

FileHand
http://www.filehand.com

Locate32 (indexes file / folder names, but NOT file content)
http://www.uku.fi/~jmhuttun/english/softwares.shtml
 
Iain Cheyne said:
Which is lighter on system resources?
Click to expand...

No comparison. As mentioned in a previous thread, my testing showed that Google
had three processes with a total memory utilization of about 8 megs.
Copernic Desktop took 28 megs of memory. That's the main reason that I deleted
Copernic in favor of Google.

jw
 
Andrew Diamond said:
I've used both to index my disks. The google desktop just gives you a list
of files in the browser with hyperlinks. It gives back a laundry list of
hits that can be as long and as impractical as any google search.

Copernic desktop gives you the ability to search files vs email, etc. and
allows you to use full boolean operations (and, or, not, paranthesis - much
more powerful than google), allows you to specify file filters, have
explorer right click shell menus on the items, a preview pane, sort the list
of files by type, date, folder.
Click to expand...

I concur. I've tested Google, Blinkx, Copernic and Wilbur in the last three
weeks. I rate Copernic #1 and Wilbur #2 based on ease of use, variety of
file types that can be handled and presentation of results. I didn't look at
the resources issue. Wilbur made #2 for ease of use and speed, however, it
doesn't handle MP3, email or other "exotic" file content.

M
 
Hello, <<M>>!
You wrote on Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:23:02 GMT:

M> I concur. I've tested Google, Blinkx, Copernic and Wilbur in the last
M> three weeks. I rate Copernic #1 and Wilbur #2 based on ease of use,
M> variety of file types that can be handled and presentation of results. I
M> didn't look at the resources issue. Wilbur made #2 for ease of use and
M> speed, however, it doesn't handle MP3, email or other "exotic" file
M> content.

Does Copernic handle the Corel office files like wordperfect, quattro, etc.?


Thanks.

Colonel Blip.
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
I've used both to index my disks. The google desktop just gives you a list
of files in the browser with hyperlinks. It gives back a laundry list of
hits that can be as long and as impractical as any google search.

Copernic desktop gives you the ability to search files vs email, etc. and
allows you to use full boolean operations (and, or, not, paranthesis - much
more powerful than google), allows you to specify file filters, have
explorer right click shell menus on the items, a preview pane, sort the list
of files by type, date, folder.

This isn't just a feature count. Simply put, I've found Google Desktop to
be pretty useless but Copernic Desktop has proved very useful.

Copernic Desktop does seem to have its faults: It ocassionally crashes
(well, at least for me). It doesn't happen very often. Oddly enough, much
to my surprise, that's not such a big deal. You just start it up again - no
harm, no lost work, so no big deal. It seems to start up wherever it was
when it crashed.

I just used it this morning to find some word perfect attachment that was
sent to me in an email Typed a word a bang the search was done out of 100GB
of used disk. Sorted by file type and there it was. Clicked on it and saw
it in a preview pane. I love it.
Click to expand...

I haven't had it crash, freeze or anything like that. The thing I like
the most about Copernic is you can configure it to NOT to start with
Windows and to index only when you tell it to and only on the drives
you want to have indexed in that session. That saves a lot of
resources and annoyance. For that alone I think it's worth trying.
 
Copernic desktop gives you the ability to search files vs email, etc....
Click to expand...

Another benefit of Copernic, a major one for me, is that it indexes the
content of PDF files. Google can't.

Ibn
 
my testing showed that Google
had three processes with a total memory utilization of about 8 megs.
Copernic Desktop took 28 megs of memory. That's the main reason that I
deleted Copernic in favor of Google.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I am low on RAM these days, so I'll skip on Copernic.
 
According to the help file, it does handle Wordperfect files. No mention of
Quattro specifically. You have the option of specifying additional file
types. You could specify Quattro files and give it a try. I can't test since
I don't have any files of this sort.

I suspect that it will work in some fashion, but you may see a lot of junk
that represents the coding stuff as well. For example, Wilbur is able to do
this -- it doesn't search Powerpoint files, but I set it up to do so. It
will search them and they show up in search results but the words are mixed
up with a lot of garbage that I guess represents the code stuff. I suspect
Copernic may work the same way.

M
 
No comparison. As mentioned in a previous thread, my testing showed that Google
had three processes with a total memory utilization of about 8 megs.
Copernic Desktop took 28 megs of memory. That's the main reason that I deleted
Copernic in favor of Google.
Click to expand...

From the Copernic site:

Copernic's exclusive patent pending "Smart Indexing"” technology
monitors user activity and indexes only during idle time, assuring
that CDS will never slow down your computer.

They show a screen with a couple checkboxes to suspend indexing when
resources are low, while you use the computer at all, or to run in low
priority in the background.
 
Richard said:
Copernic's exclusive patent pending "Smart Indexing"" technology
monitors user activity and indexes only during idle time
Click to expand...

Google only indexes during idle time too.
 
Does it support the NEAR or NEAR xx operator?

I don't think anything without "near" can properly be termed "full"
boolean.
Click to expand...
Taking exactly, NEAR has nothing to do with Boolean algebra :-)

--
"Libor the Wanderer" <[email protected]>

Any supposed offense is because of bad english or idea formulation
and was not intended in any way.

ForPrivateResponseRemoveDelAndThisFromAboveAddress.
 
Ibn Battuta said:
Another benefit of Copernic, a major one for me, is that it indexes the
content of PDF files. Google can't.

Ibn
Click to expand...

I tested Copernic, however while it works with Outlook Express, it
can't index Outlook. Copernic technical support confirmed this and
said they were working on a solution.

Google desktop only lasted a day on my computer. I couldn't see a way
to tell it to narrow the searches to 'search email only' or 'search my
documents only'.

Blinkx was good, however, it consumes a lot of resources and made my
computer slow to respond.
 
I tested Copernic, however while it works with Outlook Express, it
can't index Outlook. Copernic technical support confirmed this and
said they were working on a solution.
Click to expand...

I don't understand then, because I am using Outlook2002 at work and
Outlook2003 at home and Copernic indexes all my emails just fine.
Outlook Express has been removed from both computers as well.

Ibn
 
(e-mail address removed) (Wayne Rooney) wrote in
Google desktop only lasted a day on my computer. I couldn't see a way
to tell it to narrow the searches to 'search email only' or 'search my
documents only'.
Click to expand...

You wait for the search results and click the relevant link at the top of
the screen.
 
I tested Copernic, however while it works with Outlook Express, it
can't index Outlook. Copernic technical support confirmed this and
said they were working on a solution.

Google desktop only lasted a day on my computer. I couldn't see a way
to tell it to narrow the searches to 'search email only' or 'search my
documents only'.

Blinkx was good, however, it consumes a lot of resources and made my
computer slow to respond.
Click to expand...

All search engines require an index of files to operate from - its
probably just building this up for you. Leave it going overnight and
it should behave a lot better. Version 2 is out now which seems to be
much better.
 
I tested Copernic, however while it works with Outlook Express, it
can't index Outlook. Copernic technical support confirmed this and
said they were working on a solution.

Google desktop only lasted a day on my computer. I couldn't see a way
to tell it to narrow the searches to 'search email only' or 'search my
documents only'.

Blinkx was good, however, it consumes a lot of resources and made my
computer slow to respond.
Click to expand...


Hi

blinkx have just released a new version (2.0) which I've found to be a
lot lighter. It also has a few new features including P2P searching
and Smart folders. It really seems to have come on a long way since
1.0
 
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