Yahoo! has become the latest search engine to join the desktop search party. A beta version of the Yahoo! Desktop Search is now available at: http://desktop.yahoo.com.
The updated release includes a contextual word search function called Live-Words, which allows users to use selected text in applications like Microsoft Word as a search query. By clicking on the Live-Words button provided by the Yahoo software, users will be presented with a search snack, which is to say search results based on highlighted text.
Typing a search query will bring up all the files that contain the term on the left and a preview of the file by default on the right – which can be a bit slow for really big files.
Yahoo! is taking a different approach to desktop search from its main rivals. Unlike the Google desktop search, which integrates with the Google results page or the MSN desk bar the Yahoo! desktop search is a self contained application.
As with Google and MSN’s search, the tool can index a wide range of popular file formats. Yahoo! says the tool can index over 200 different types of text, word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation applications from the common to the obscure. However, unlike the MSN search bar, it does not index Outlook appointments.
However, the tool would not automatically index new or edited files. Instead you have to wait for a scheduled index to happen. Somewhat surprisingly for a tool from a search engine, it cannot sort the results by relevance or name but purely by date.
The tool, for Windows XP and 2000 with SP3, has been developed in conjunction with X1 Technologies, whose founder Bill Gross helped to establish Overture – now a Yahoo! subsidiary – the web’s biggest search engine marketing company.
According to a company spokesperson, Yahoo does not disclosure how many people are using its search software. A number of other companies including Copernic, Google, MSN, and Ask Jeeves also offer desktop search applications.