The Biz of Coding

Whats new in Google Desktop 4 over GD 3

by Ujwal Tickoo on May 13th, 2006

Here are the new features or changes I see in Google Desktop 4 over Google Desktop 3 with Positives and Negatives marked:

+ Panels to Gadgets

In Google Desktop 3 the Sidebar was a collection panels. Each panel provided a specific functionality: News, Notepad, Web Clips etc. Panels have given way to Gadgets in Google Desktop 4. The change is not just in naming but in the approach. Gadgets can be built by 3rd party developers and Google.

GD 4’s Gadgets are similar to Yahoo Widgets or Apple Mac OS X Widgets. In essence the Google Sidebar is a now collection of several Gadgets that Google or any 3rd Party software vendor can build.

For adding or removing Gadgets you click on Add Gadgets + sign right on top of the sidebar and get a neat pop-up displaying several categories of Gadgets. The Additing Gadget UI is very neat. Before adding a Gadget you can read a small explanation about it.

- If you choose to disable "Search Across Computers" you might not be able to Delete your Data from Google Servers

As I mentioned in my previous post, Google Desktop 4 not allowing deleting User data on Google’s Servers, if you use "Search Across Computers" feature in Google Desktop 4 and your data gets moved to Goog’s servers — you may not be able to delete this data. This is a strange decision made by Google. Very anti-choice.

+ Personalized Google Home Page Integration

While you are installing Google Desktop 4, you can create a personalized Google Home Page. Quite clearly, Google is moving toward portalization as I had pointed out in my post Is Google doing a Yahoo? Makings of the Google Portal.

Here are the limitations and bugs I found in this feature:

1. You can only personlize the stock symbols from the installer — other content items like news can be changed only from the Home Page
2. My personalization settings were not remembered. After I exited from Google Desktop 4 and launched my browser and typed www.google.com I was taken to the Classic page not the Personalized page.

+ Re-Build an Index

If you massively change your data on your hard disk then you can tell Google Desktop 4 to rebuild your index. This is better than uninstalling and reinstalling Google Desktop — which was the only way to re-build an index quickly uptil version 3.

+ Remove Delted Items

In version 3 Google Desktop indexed your deleted items. If you dont like this feature you can check this preference and Google Desktop 4 will stop indexing your deleted items!

+ Quick Search Box

If you hit the CTRL key twice a quick search box will pop-up courtesy of Google Desktop 4. Hitting the CTRL key twice will hide the box.

+ Search Across Computers — Share Google Gadget and Content Settings

If you have a google account — you can access Google Gadget content and settings like To Do lists, Scratch Pad notes, favorite stocks, and more from any computer. The only issue I have with this feature is a privacy problem that I mentioned in my previous post. You may not be able to delete your data on Google Servers (that gets moved to Goog’s servers so that you can access it anywhere).

Overall rating: Google Desktop 4 is a good upgrade from Google Desktop 3. However, If you want to use Search Across Computers — and worry about your privacy — I would not recommend this version to you and ask you to continue to use version 3 until Google (GOOG) fixes this issue.

 

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POSTED IN: Google Search