Google Desktop for Mac OS X

For those of you who don’t know what Google Desktop is, Google Desktop is Google’s take on instant searching, much like Apple’s Spotlight or Vista’s new searching technology. Once installed, the default key to invoke the applet is Command + Command (press command twice). You also don’t need to wait while Google Desktop indexes your files. Just enter your search into the big search box and a pull down menu appears with the top results as well as an option to make an online query or search your web history. Google Desktop also comes with a System Preferences pane allowing you to change the Keyboard shortcut as well as the ability to index your Gmail account or any other disk including your iDisk.

Over all Google Desktop is a great searching utility, however spotlight already takes care of most of the features that it has. I think its popularity grew based on its windows version, which was a good substitute for Spotlight. If you want the ability to search through all of your files, find something online, or quickly search your Gmail account all in one app, this is what you’re looking for. Google Desktop is available for free straight from Google.