« Yahoo! Picks of the Year | Main | A Foxy Browser Scores in Search »

January 10, 2005

Yahoo! Desktop Search Beta

As noted last month, there's been a lot of interest and excitement around Desktop Search products and technology. Today you get a chance to try out the beta version of what we call YDS (Yahoo! Desktop Search).

So What?

If you're like us, you might be thinking "Yet another desktop search product... What makes this one special?" Well, there are two ways to answer that. First, a quick rundown on a few of the features we like to brag about. Then we'll talk about our larger view of what searching your "desktop" really means.

  • Speed. YDS is really fast.
  • Instant Feedback. YDS provides incremental search, much like you find in Firefox. As you type each character of your search, the results are updated instantly. Not only does this mean less typing, but you'll catch spelling mistakes a lot faster too.
  • Comprehensiveness. YDS indexes a lot of file types. Over 200.
  • Built in Preview: YDS renders a preview view for most of the 200+ file types and enables you to page through the preview, so you don't need to launch the full-blown application just to see if you've found the right document. You can page through a PowerPoint, Word or PDF doc, examine individual cells in Excel, or even play an mp3 file--right there in YDS.
  • Actions. If you right click on a result, YDS provides a context-specific menu that allows you to do things with the email or document: reply, forward, print, open, etc.
  • Cost. YDS is free.

Going Beyond the Desktop

The notion of a "desktop" is changing. Most products are built with the premise that your desktop is just a way of seeing what's on your computer's hard disk. But in today's world, many of us create, find, use, and share information that lives in many places. Some of it lives on your computer, some lives on Yahoo! and other on-line services, some may live on other computers or devices on your home network.

We don't think you should have to think about where your stuff is stored in order to find it. That's where this is all headed. And as YDS evolves, you'll see that becoming more and more clear.

In the meantime, we need to know what you think of our first cut at getting there. Download YDS and let us know what you think. We've setup a message board for YDS discussion or you can leave a comment here.

Bradley Horowitz
Jeremy Zawodny

Update: PC Magazine reviewed YDS and gave it a 4.5 out of 5.0, calling it "an excellent choice." Thanks for all the feedback so far. Keep it coming!

Permalink | Bookmark | del.icio.us | digg | Filed In: News/Announcements

Comments

Any word regarding a Mac friendly version?

Posted by: Alex | January 10, 2005 10:17 PM

the Yahoo Desktop Search can not support folders/filenames in chinese. It indexes them all but i can't reach the files in the search results. sad........

Posted by: WebLeOn | January 10, 2005 11:19 PM

Congrats on the release!

Posted by: Bubba | January 10, 2005 11:34 PM

It even says yinst...

Posted by: Dave | January 10, 2005 11:47 PM

AHAAAAAAAAAAAAHhh OMG downloading right now !! !can't wait to test it !!!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks so much

Posted by: Guillaume | January 11, 2005 12:34 AM

OK well, it's me again, it IS indeed really fast !!
Also I thought I had heard that this tool was also supposed to search within our personal Yahoo network, that is thruout the briefcase, photo Y!Mail, calendar event, contacts....what has become of that? will it be in the final release?
Thanks

Posted by: Guillaume | January 11, 2005 12:45 AM

alright I'm sorry I rea the FAQ and I see all this will be coming later.

I have another suggestion to make quite different:
Since we will end being able to search for off/online data then it might be interesting to reintroduce a Yahoo Virtual Drive like you did before XP was release so that we could easily upload either to Yahoo Mail (Like Gmail Drive) or to the Briefcase or to the Photos but through the XP Explorer

Posted by: Guillaume | January 11, 2005 01:31 AM

Yawn

Posted by: Yawn | January 11, 2005 02:44 AM

I guess its just like giving X1 for free !!

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/01/yahoo-desktop-search-is-now-available.html

Yahoo Desktop Search gains on two points:

1. Support for so many file types.
2. Built in Preview

Thank you Yahoo! folks.

The Indian Blogger
http://labnol.blogspot.com

Posted by: Amit Agarwal | January 11, 2005 02:50 AM

Good job. However, I still prefer Copernic Desktop Search.

Posted by: Peter Clark | January 11, 2005 04:08 AM

Cheating Wives - my First Impressions of Yahoo's Desktop Search.

I feel the white paper coming on now. :) What happened was simply that the indexer shows email by default and picked deleted spam (spam filtered successfully) in the display pane. I was very surprised to open up the software and be greeted by such a message!

You've beaten MSN in presentation. I think it was a mistake for MSN to go for such a busy presentation and keep it web based. I'm happy to use the buttons and fields in Yahoo! Desktop Search because it's a program. A quirk of psychology, I know, but an honest reaction.


The search while you type feature is funky. It also helps avoid empty searches. I thought I'd been using the phrase "actiontag" but when I hit the t key and the search results cleared I knew I should be searching for "action tag" instead.

I'm afraid the search tool has fallen into Not Responding three times since I downloaded it this morning. That's once during the first index. The second time after I recovered from that. Then again when I sat down to really test it.

It's very handy that it searches through Contacts. I wish Google's did that. This is a real reason to use Yahoo's. On the other hand, I'm surprised you don't seem to index Yahoo! Messenger conversations when the archiving feature is turned on.

It's curious there's no apparent RSS interaction (you could almost have live bookmarks here). Curious not because RSS and desktop search are closely associated (far from it) - but because we all know how much Yahoo likes RSS! :D

Posted by: Andrew | January 11, 2005 06:25 AM

Yahoo! wins

Review: Wow! I can't believe Yahoo! came up with such a great desktop search. It doesn't grind my harddrive. It indexed quite nicely. It's even indexing my C# files and making them ultra searchable. The developers @ MSN and Google desktop search should be embarrassed.

http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/?guid=20050110231348

Posted by: Randy Charles Morin | January 11, 2005 10:06 AM

Please, support Thunderbird, Eudora, Pine and all the other clients that use mbox format. It would broaden your base considerably (2 million thunderbird downloads already), and it's a standard format in plain text. No other desktop search supports it, so it would differentiate your product from all others (Google, MSN, Copernic, Filehand) as none do. I installed Yahoo DS (I already use Copernic), and it's very good, but there is no compelling advantage over Copernic as it stands now.

Thanks

Brendan

Posted by: Brendan | January 12, 2005 08:58 PM

OK well the tool is great after two days using it but I really find it's a bit too cluttered...That's not "yahoo"...Yahoo is by definition clean , this tool present too much in the toolbar and when first opening the software we should not see the list of a previous search but a clean nearly blank interface
Also the field to enter the search terms should be bigger
The Yahoo presence in this software really is minor...apart from this Yahoo button I expected much more, like a special toolbar for websearches (images, news, local...) built in inside the software
well it's only a beta but I really look forward to see you posting every release updates over here

http://www.guillaumebelfiore.net

Posted by: Guilaume | January 13, 2005 08:54 AM

I've used Google and Blinkx desktop search for PC so far and I'm not patronizing, but I've found myself using Yahoo Desktop Search the most.
Why?
1. Fast
2. File categories make it easy to use
3. Preview pane - VERY cool
4. Search as you type really speeds things up
5. Outlook functionality

Nice.

http://toprank.blogspot.com/2005/01/yahoo-search-blog.html

Posted by: toprank | January 13, 2005 11:11 AM

Excellent ! it's basically X1 for free. Speed is good also.
but how about supporting mozilla's mails ?

Posted by: denius666 | January 14, 2005 02:43 AM

Fast, Accurate, Powerful, and Free. Thumbs up Yahoo.

Posted by: Omar | January 16, 2005 08:07 PM

Add IMAP support and YDS would be unstoppable.

Posted by: Thejo | January 18, 2005 09:42 AM

After few hours YDS is still indexing files. I already posted two technical problems to Yahoo. Firstly the help is wrong about adding archived pst file, read a review that X1 can do this but YDS doesn't. Secondly the dates for lots of files indexed are wrong, should be 2004 but displayed 2024. Can't expect correct result if I know date of file only.

Generally UI is quite good, I'll give it a pass. It's still "very beta", a long way to go. I have yet to test out if YDS will detect on the fly moving of files, renaming of folders etc. GDS failed to do this hence they got uninstalled. CDS passed that test and I'm still using it. However CDS can't index archived pst files which is a shame. On the fly indexing is important to tester like me.

Posted by: sfong15 | January 21, 2005 11:29 PM

Hi...re:Yahoo Desktop search

I do not get preview of html docs in preview pane on right hand side. Other docs preview OK?
Any ideas?
Thanks

Posted by: A. Kahrim | January 25, 2005 09:45 AM

X1 5.0 is out. It supports network drive indexing as well as Netscape Email/ Eudora.

Other than that, I guess rest everything is in YDS.

Amit
http://labnol.blogspot.com

Posted by: amit agarwal | January 29, 2005 02:16 AM

good yes very good um does it work?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Posted by: lcel15 | February 9, 2005 01:57 PM

I have used the X1 search before, and it's amazing - the speed, ease of search, preview etc are all top notch. Its cost from X1 directly was $99, so pretty awesome to get this technology for free.

Posted by: Hassan Khawaja | February 16, 2005 08:32 AM

Yahoo Desktop may or may not be great, but I can't tell because it refuses to download. If I can't get it, what's the use?
Apparently it is similar to X1. However X1 does a great job of searchin Eudora Email which apparently Yahoo doesn't do(nor does MSN search). Why not add Eudora?

Posted by: Jim brown | February 18, 2005 02:48 PM

This would completely win the desktop search category, but it needs to index Thunderbird, Eudora etc...

Also, indexing all tasks and calendars for PIM software would be essential. (iCal, Sunbird, Palm Desktop, etc)

Posted by: Mark Zabala | March 7, 2005 05:12 PM

What I have read so far about YDS is generally positive.

I have been researching personal knowledge management software to provide me some of the things that YDS seems to do.But, can any one here explain to me differences b/t YDS and PKM, if any?

Posted by: elevin | March 13, 2005 11:21 PM

hey guys,

congrats - pcw just gave you their "editor's pick" award.

Amit
http://labnol.blogspot.com

Posted by: amit agarwal | March 15, 2005 05:29 AM

I see its an editors choice.
It doesn't index Thunderbird files.
Makes it useless to me.

Posted by: JimH | March 16, 2005 02:13 PM

Yahoo! Desktop Search sounded great. So I've installed it and gave it a try. And immediately discovered the lack of Thunderbird Email support.

Sorry, guys. No go. If I want to be stuck with Outlook, I can use Microsoft's desktop search.

Posted by: Tony | March 19, 2005 11:12 AM

Any discussion on spyware content attached/associated with this search tool?

Posted by: Bill | March 25, 2005 01:19 PM