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LookOut vs. Google Desktop

For the past few months, I've been using LookOut for Outlook to tame my ever-enlarging Inboxes. It does a phenomenal job and it's free (http://www.lookoutsoft.com). I don't think I could live without it as I have instant access to all my archives.
 
But now, I just installed Google's Desktop Search tool http://desktop.google.com/, a tool that essentially "googlizes" your entire computer: files, emails, everything - is now accessible from a Google Search.
 
They both have effectively done the same job: LookOut has an option to look into My Documents, if you configure it and Google has an option to look at your email.
 
The thing I really like about Google's search is that it automatically groups my emails. So if I do a search for Customer Contract, and there are 5 different email threads spanning 100 emails - they appear as 5 "found" items but note how many emails are on each one. LookOut , in contrast, lists each email which can make it hard to move through.
 
Google's search also seems much faster.
 
Some people note some security options on the Google Desktop search (http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/000264.html) but those can be turned off.
 
Let me know which one you prefer.

Comments

Anonymous said…
If you're looking to use the search program for more than just e-mails I suggest you give Copernic Desktop Search a try.

Really neat program which gives previews of the files that it finds.
October 22, 2004 at 4:22 PM
Martín Salías said…
I'm there, too, and I vote for Google Desktop, by two reasons:

- Lookout is not available anymore. They got bought by Microsoft, and you can't download the product anymore, although they (gratiously) allow you to keep using what you already installed.

- Google is a trustworthy company for me, both from a privacy and a technical-quality perspective.

As far as I see, Google tackled one of the problems WinFS is not covering for the (who knows?) next two years. Those guys are pretty smart, uh?

Regards,
Martín
October 25, 2004 at 2:37 PM
Anonymous said…
Actually, Martin, that's not quite true. LookOut can be downloaded right here:
http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/download.html
October 27, 2004 at 5:32 AM
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