Yahoo has slight edge in desktop searching

NEW YORK -- No longer is search just about finding stuff on the Internet.

The battleground has moved to individual PCs as leading search companies develop free tools for cataloguing your computer. The three I tried are all good at finding files -- even ones I thought I had long deleted (whoops!).

Of the three desktop search programs, the Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. products differ slightly in how they approach your data, while the Google Inc. alternative diverges quite a lot.

Which one is right for you comes down to your needs and regard for privacy.

Microsoft's MSN Desktop Search, which is part of the MSN Toolbar Suite, and Yahoo Desktop Search are still "beta," or test, products, which could explain why Yahoo kept crashing on one work machine while MSN refused to index my laptop.

Google, which recently left beta, worked fine on both but has other flaws.

All three programs, available only for Windows XP and 2000 machines, index file names as well as contents, so a search for "stupidity" generates documents with that word buried inside.

For music, photos and video, the programs look for "metatags" that carry song names and other descriptions.

MSN and Yahoo both claim to handle more than 200 file types, though MSN needs a plug-in to fully scan PDF documents. Google officials refused to provide a full list, but the company's Web site lists more than a dozen, the ones you're most likely to need.

MSN and Google also let outside developers make plug-ins for unsupported formats.

All three programs index e-mail using Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express software, but Google goes further in handling Mozilla-based products, including Netscape and Thunderbird.

Yahoo also scans attachments, while the other two only capture their file names (though MSN lets you change a setting for full scanning).

Google also records your instant messaging conversations over America Online Inc.'s AIM software, while Yahoo and MSN index their own IM programs.

Yahoo, which licenses technology from the startup X1 Technologies, was the most comprehensive under default configurations, finding twice as many files on one machine as Google while taking about half the time.

On a different machine, MSN found only a quarter of what Google indexed. That's because MSN looks mainly in your documents folders, which is where most of your key files are likely to be anyway. But MSN alone also gives you the option of fully scanning any networked drives you may have.

Google, meanwhile, stands out in recording Web sites you've visited. Say, you saw in interesting article but could no longer find it on the Web. Google's program can retrieve it from your computer, even if you had never saved it.

That feature cuts both way, however: Perhaps you DON'T want your computer to remember everything you've ever browsed -- especially if you've been goofing off at work.

Of course, you can turn off the indexing when visiting sensitive sites, so it's not a show-stopper.

What bothers me more is the fact that deleted e-mails and files stay in the Google index unless you delete them there as well. Google says it's a good backup mechanism, but there's usually a reason I want to delete a file. Both MSN and Yahoo remove deleted items, and Google ought to at least make that an option.

So while I like Google's ability to index Thunderbird e-mail, I hesitate when it comes to retention and privacy. Yahoo is a bit better than MSN -- Yahoo won't record any IM chats by default, and like Google it lets you exclude certain file types from indexing. But MSN supports third-party plug-ins and network scanning

The flip side to indexing, of course, is finding the files.

All three programs have deskbars -- small boxes that sit anchored to the bottom of your computer screen -- from which you enter search terms. MSN will even find files as you type from the deskbar, while Yahoo does it only from its desktop search application.

Google once again stands out here. It doesn't offer as-you-type searching or the ability to search partial words, but it alone integrates your desktop and Web results into one page.

That's good if you don't like thinking of information in compartments, whether it's on the Net or stored locally. It's just information.

That said, because Yahoo and MSN treat your files as files, you can more easily sort results by file type, name, date or whatever. You can also do more with a file -- open it, print it, reply if it's e-mail.

Between the two, the advantage goes to Yahoo. Its application devotes a generous amount of space to preview files. You see photos as photos, not small thumbnails. You see spreadsheets as spreadsheets, not mangled text.

All three programs handle the basics well, so your choice may ultimately come down to what e-mail and IM programs you use and whether you care about Google's retention of deleted files.

If you're indifferent, Yahoo's preview feature may help tip the scales.