The Net Takeaway: Desktop Search settling down....

Desktop Search settling down.... · 04/06/2005 05:59 PM, Tech Search

So, when we last left off (3 individual links), we had many different search tools out there, but I had basically ended up liking X1 and Copernic Desktop Search. However, I had enough reservations with both that I couldn’t use either of them.

So, what am I running these days on my work machines? X1 and Copernic.

What?, you gasp… Didn’t you have lots of complaints? Yes, but things have improved.

Pricing: When I bought it, a sale was on, and I paid far less than the listed $75. It helped that I got 5 copies, but even then, they charged far less.

Phone Home?: Yes, it still phones home… but I talked to a sales rep, and whaddaya know, if you ask, they have a “No Net” version… but you have to ask for it. Costs the same, but is not available on the site. In fact, for each upgrade, you have to ask for it again. I guess if you are buying through a human, they can trust you not to spread the thing around, but if you download it from the site, you must be a pirate and need to be tracked. So, don’t buy from the site, call a sales rep, and ask for the “No Net” version. If enough people do this, they will hopefull see the error of their ways.
- Yes, I fully see the irony of the fact that they had a NoNet version. They must already understand that people hate it, enough to make an entirely separate build of the product

Speed: Its fast, but when indexing files, it really ties up the CPU and slows down the box. X1 continually adds to the type and count of files it can index (tied to its use of Stellent’s OutsideIn as its preview tool) so more and more data becomes findable. So, I can live with the scan slowdown, esp. if I schedule it for wee hours in the morning.

Still No Integration with Web Search: I couldn’t care less (why I was bored with Google Desktop Search), but a user on the X1 forums did raise a good point. He thought it would be useful to index and search an intranet for documents and info. That is a good idea. Not in X1, nor in any of the others… but it would fit well in X1.

Huge Missing Feature: No Wildcards. If you can’t spell your term, good luck. If you can’t remember the first character of that name, good luck. If you want all the docs with a word ending in “dinary”, good luck. Try another tool. X1 can’t do it, and from the forums, appears to not want to even try (a switch from the early days where they said it might show up in later versions). Now, Copernic doesn’t appear to have this either, but for some reason, it doesn’t feel as painful. Maybe its because I had to pay for X1.

Copernic
Using version 1.5, current as of this writing.

Wildcards for extensions: they now let you add every file to the file tree for indexing (of the filename, not necessarily of the content), or various combinations of extensions. Very handy, and still fast. Remember, I don’t care to find what’s in that dll file, but I want to be able find every one on my drive fast. Copernic can now do this.
- As mentioned above, still no wildcard in search string. Some of the other tools I mentioned in my earlier post do have this feature, but they cost more (often, lots more).

No indexing in Zip files: lots of people complain about this, and I use lots of zip files for storage, but so far, I haven’t really had a need for this. I am more often searching for a specific Zip, then I am willing to unzip the files and see what’s in it. But yes, X1 does search in Zips, and that could be cool for some folks.

Only free tool to index network drives: Yahoo’s version of X1 doesn’t. Most of the ones I tested, in fact, don’t… but this one does! Nice job. As I’ve said before, even home users have little mini networks and shared files; its tacky to arbitrarily decide that if you have a network of any kind, you are a business and need to pay. Ever heard of “simple file sharing”?

Added Delete button to email results: Handy when you’ve collected a bunch of emails you don’t need, and want to select the bunch and delete them. Old version made you open each one and delete; new one lets you delete from results. X1 always had this.

Both tools attempt to search music and picture files, but I don’t really use those features. Neither searches Outlook Tasks, Notes, or other more esoteric features, but those will come.

So, get X1 if you can get the NoNet version, and can pay the fee, or get Copernic 1.5 which is really turning into a very nice tool, and continues to be free.

Bang for the buck, no contest. Get Copernic. But when X1 finally lowers its price, it will be worth paying for.

(Note: I have no affiliation to either company; I paid for one and the other is a local hometown fave (now owned by a Canadian company, but who’s counting) and I am getting no compensation for complaining about either product, both of which are pretty good.)

* * *

Thank you for posting about X1 in your blog. I hope people use it and love it.

I am writing to clarify some of the issues that were raised about X1 Desktop Search:

1. “Phone Home”

X1 will connect to the Internet to perform these tasks:

a) Check for updates. In the past, users could not disable this feature. However, users can now turn this off in the X1 Options. This feature was introduced into version 5.1.

b) Upload anonymous usage data. This is data that helps us improve the product (crash information, etc.). Registered users have always had the ability to opt out of this logging completely (in the X1 Options). With version 5.0 and above, X1 now allows you to view the contents of the log files that are being sent to us before it sends out. Users can then decide if this information should go out or not.

c) The last task cannot be disabled. X1 will send a log file that conains your registration code and a unique log id. This allows us to verify the registration code being used. This will usually happen once a day during X1 startup.

There is no special no-net version of X1 that can be purchased by an individual.

2. CPU Issue While Indexing

We have identified more bugs with File indexing that can cause high CPU usage. I would encourage you to try version 5.1 (build 1616zzzzg) on our site:

http://www.x1.com/cs/x1-setup.exe

The product will continue to improve.

3. Wildcard Search

X1 performs searches at the beginning for words. So, the word “binary” would come up if you search for “b” or “bin” or “binar.” It will not come up if you search for “inary” or “ary.”

Support for Wildcard searching is not in the immediate future, but it is a top feature request. I cannot guarantee if this feature will ever be in X1, but it is something that we are looking at very seriously. Again, we are always improving X1 and we are certainly not done.

Again, thank you for posting about X1. We appreciate the feedback as well. Please continue to let us know if we are lacking in certain areas or have any other type of feedback. Anyone can let us know at this link:

http://www.x1.com/support/customer_care/index.html
— Noel Ferreria Apr 13, 08:00 PM #
Thanks for the comments. Just a few followups:

1) Hmm. The simple check I did (blocking all access to x1.com) didn’t show any phoning home, but if your program pings an IP, I wouldn’t have caught it. I will install it on a fresh machine to verify. If, on a fresh machine, it phones home, then of course we will ask for our money back and post about it here, since I’ve been assured by multiple sales-people that the version I have should not keep pinging, even at startup.

If I were to read into the specifics of your comment, it would appear that you are saying that individuals cannot purchase a no-phone-home version, but non-individuals (ie., companies) can?

2) The high CPU is with the version referenced in the comment. However, I am sure you will fix it sooner or later.

3) I suspect wildcards will come sooner or later, because x1 continually adds features and has rolled them out with no additional charge. In addition, Noel didn’t mention the new products rolling out, such as shared search for large enterprises.

So, we can assume that somewhere along the way, X1 will add the right stuff. But as long as they continue to include reg checks, I cannot heartily recommend it.
— Michael Wexler Apr 13, 08:38 PM #

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