Google Desktop 2

Google Desktop 2 organises search, news, maps, applications and weather, as well as your recently accessed files and Web visits into a tidy package of mini-portals on your desktop. Third-party programmers have already added dozens of useful tools to Desktop, with more sure to come. This personalised desktop portal is well organised if you spend some time getting used to it and setting your preferences. The privacy-minded should appreciate the level of control. Although we were puzzled by some of the automated dynamic content displays, we found this tool fun to play with and easy to adjust to our liking. We recommend Google Desktop 2 for people who want to easily access shortcuts to their most-frequented files, Web pages and applications from their desktop -- especially for those seeking an alternative to the clunky navigation of Windows XP.

Installing Google Desktop 2 on our Windows XP computer went smoothly and took less than five minutes in our tests. If you're ultra-conscientious about privacy, scrutinise the Preferences page via the Sidebar's top drop-down menu, which lets you choose what to hide or reveal to Google.

Google Desktop 2 may not please you if you feel too uneasy to entrust your computing and surfing habits to an outside party. Still, Google's privacy policy insists that 'without your explicit permission', it won't collect your name, address or the content of your computer. Therefore, uncheck Advanced Features if you don't want to send Google data about the Web sites you visit. From Preferences, you can also block specific files, folders, email and Web sites from being indexed. The Google Desktop 2 Enterprise edition gives network administrators full control over settings. See the user guide for more on encrypting your files. You may find Google Desktop 2 only minimally useful with Advanced Features turned off. For example, enabling Advanced Features allows the program to display personalised news and photos. We liked the fact that this application didn't ask to reset our browser home page or add desktop icons.

Once Google Desktop 2 is open, the Sidebar appears in a narrow column at the right-hand edge of your screen. The grey interface is subtle and sparse, given its bevy of content. Modules include Photos, Maps, Google Talk, Email, News, Web Clips, Scratch Pad, Stocks and Weather. To date, you can pick from hundreds of plug-ins to add more panels that display a PC system monitor, a calendar, content from iTunes, your American Express transactions and more. Click any panel to expand details to the left of it. Click Maps to extend a mini-window, where you can type in a search that opens a browser window to Google Local. To hide the Sidebar, click the top drop-down arrow to display the search box either as a Deskbar on the bottom of your screen or as a Floating Deskbar.

Desktop 2 lets you reject Sidebar features that might betray your secrets to passers-by who glance at your screen. For example, Sidebar shuffles through recent photos, which could embarrass you, say, if snapshots of last weekend's costume party from your friend's Flickr account pop up at the office. To hide the Photos panel or other potentially sensitive portals, such as Email, just open the Add/Remove Panels window from the Sidebar's uppermost drop-down menu. You can also visit Options to filter content -- helpful if you want to keep the Email module open but want to block certain messages from appearing.

Because we allowed Advanced Features to track our Web-surfing habits, Sidebar rotated through our content, with mixed results. Google says that Desktop 2 will reflect your surfing patterns within a day. Indeed, we found that the News portal displayed a host of tech stories from business publications after we spent an afternoon reading up on related subjects. Unfortunately, you can't tweak that content yourself or integrate with Google Reader, even though the News feature scans XML feeds.

The Maps panel provides a slide show based on locations and zip codes mentioned within the Web sites you visit. It was novel to see towns in Poland, China and Saudi Arabia appear. Unfortunately, we hoped and tried but failed to find businesses (such as 'restaurant, 94110') directly within the Sidebar; instead, we had to open a browser window. We ran into other quirks: the What's Hot panel displayed items that we had removed the previous day. And we found the learning curve steep for managing the random picks displayed by the Photos box.

Happily, Google Desktop Search made it straightforward to find buried email and lost documents. We like the fact that the search bar provides a shortcut to other applications; for example, type in 'fir' to immediately open Firefox. But unlike Yahoo Desktop Search, Google's search tool doesn't organise data into handy tabs.

Google provides a thorough online knowledge base; we found the getting-started and troubleshooting sections well written and helpful. You can also ask questions via a Web-based form. We sent a query and received an immediate autoreply that stated, 'We're putting most of our energy into improving Google Desktop, so we can't promise a personal reply to every message'. Users of Google Desktop Enterprise can pay for a premium support package.

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