Google announced it, then AOL immediately announced it was testing one, a feature in the stand-along Web browser it’s developing (for everyone, including non-AOL subscribers). Ask Jeeves will soon announce its desktop tool too. What it means is searching for stuff on your family PC as easily and quickly as you search on the Web. But WAIT, there’s an important caveat: privacy and PC security in this “new era of search,” as SearchEngineWatch put it. “It’s not new that computers have sensitive data that needs to be protected. What is new is how desktop search centralizes that data and makes it more accessible. This is only an issue if someone gets physical access to your computer, of course. If you log off and use a secure password, that will be a huge deterrent.” Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know enough to do that. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more about how worth it this “convenient” new tool really is. Here’s the Associated Press on “How Google’s Desktop Search Works,” the Washington Post’s thorough article on it, and NET on AOL’s project.
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