Google, MSN Toolbars Battle for the Desktop.

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Author: Dreier, TroyLendino, Jamie

Utilities

Google and MSN don't just want to be your Web search engine of choice: They want to be your partner on the desktop as well. New desktop toolbars from each aim to make surfing and searching (both Web and local) easier and more convenient. Though Google Toolbar 3.0 is still our favorite such utility overall, we love that MSN has integrated desktop search into its new offering.

The public beta build of Google Toolbar 3.0 is an effective, albeit minor, Internet utility update that manages to keep Google in the lead among its main toolbar competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo!. The beta adds several notable features, including an AutoLink function, a Web-form spellchecker, and a word translator.

AutoLink automatically highlights street addresses on a Web page and links them to Google Maps. It didn't always work, however. It consistently choked on street numbers with a dash â€" linking, for instance to a map of 53 Maiden Lane instead of 30-53 Maiden Lane â€" and occasionally missed on addresses without a dash. It also works with book ISBN numbers and even vehicle VIN numbers, though with mixed results there too. On one Web page that listed 41 books and their ISBN numbers, AutoLink recognized only 17 of them.

Even if AutoLink worked perfectly, we're not sure everyone would be pleased with it. Some Web designers might balk at software that modifies their pages. Small bookstores

on the Web won't appreciate that when AutoLink finds books' ISBN numbers, it automatically links them to Amazon.com, especially when Amazon's prices are lower. AutoLink is a clever idea, but it will be interesting to see how well it plays with the public.

WordTranslator is useful if English isn't your native language. Simply move your cursor over an unfamiliar word and you'll get a translation in one of several languages. We tested it in Spanish, and it worked on every word we tried. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in the other direction, which would have been a boon for reading foreign pages.

SpellCheck helped us out when using Web-based e-mail and filling out a technical-support form. It works in ten different languages, and when it finds a suspect word, you can click on the word and get a list of suggestions, or add it to your personal dictionary. This spellchecker isn't necessarily superior to similar tools found in, say, Hotmail, but it does add a few extras; not only does it have a personal dictionary like you'll find in Hotmail, it adds the ability to use it on any Web site.

Older features such as the pop-up blocker and PageRank feature work as well as ever, and Google Toolbar's original function is still its most useful. Having instant access to Google's search engine at all times makes finding information on the Web as easy as breathing. Google Toolbar is also heavily customizable; click on the Options button on the left side of the toolbar, and a three-tab Options window will pop up, with separate configuration screens for each of the toolbar's main features.

Google Desktop Search is still a separate application, however. MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search managed to integrate desktop search fairly seamlessly. Google Desktop Search integrates well with Google Toolbar once you install both of them, and Google's method, unlike MSN Toolbar, actually lets you decide whether you want to install desktop search, some-thing some will consider a benefit. Yahoo!, for its part, brilliantly integrates an antispyware filter into its toolbar. Google should do the same; antispyware tools seem like a natural fit for the browsing experience.

Google Toolbar gives you several nifty shortcuts in addition to its profoundly useful search box. SpellCheck and WordTranslator are important additions, especially if you work with languages other than English. The jury is still out on AutoLink; we'll be following its development closely.

Overall, existing functionality combined with these relatively small, but important, changes solidify the Google Toolbar's lead. But Google will need to combine more tools and roll out greater innovation the next time around if it wants to stay ahead of the ever-improving MSN and Yahoo! offerings.

Free. Google, http://toolbar.google.com. @@@@#

MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search officially puts Microsoft in step with search competitors Yahoo! and Google, doing a good job of making search of all kinds ubiquitous on the desktop. In beta since last December, the final MSN Search Toolbar is essentially a suite of tools that includes search toolbars for Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook and Windows Explorer, and the MSN Deskbar for Windows' taskbar, all of which let you search local files and the Web.

MSN Toolbar has not changed much since last December, but the installation, along with the functionality and effectiveness of desktop search, which we reviewed in beta form here, has. The Toolbar installation now includes a wizard that asks you which drives and folders you want to index. That's a welcome change. There's also a new preview pane in local search results. It includes small formatted previews for most file types. A double click on the result link opens the original document. The search indexes over 200 file types, including mail, office, documents, and meta-data in media files, but doesn't automatically include PDF or ZIP files.

As in beta implementations, the MSN Desk-bar is still the only place where you'll get instant results as you type in a search term. When searching from the toolbars available in Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, or Outlook, you need to type the whole term, then hit Enter to see your results, just as on an Internet search site or the Google desktop search product. We wish Microsoft had added instant search in all the search boxes.

When we installed MSN Search Toolbar, we overrode its default settings (e-mail and My Documents) and selected all the folders we wanted indexed on our 2-GHz test system, for a total of 56,000 items. The initial background scan took roughly an hour. After that, the program adds new documents as you save them, so we were able to search against new files and information instantly.

New to this final version is the ability tot" select where to store your index file. It's one of many choices you'll find in the Desktop Search Options dialog box, which you access by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the Windows Task Tray. (Desktop Search is Microsoft's term for local file and e-mail searching.) Having the MSN Search installed didn't noticeably reduce other applications' performance.

Microsoft has built a few other useful tools into the desktop search, like the ability to create shortcuts that let you open frequently used applications or documents with only a few clicks. If this was done with a graphical interface it might find an audience, but the text-only commands will seem too confusing to most users.

Microsoft also teased us a bit here at PC Magazine with an impressive new bit of Internet Explorer functionality. One of the nonpublic betas we received actually added tabbed browsing to IE, a useful feature that has, unfortunately, been held back for further performance testing, according to Microsoft. The company says it will be available in the near future as a free add-on (check addins.msn.com).

MSN Search Toolbar does not necessarily lead the desktop toolbar pack, but it is fast, achieves an admirable level of integration and, thanks to a preview pane, returns search results in an attractive and usable format.

Free. Microsoft Corp., www.microsoft.com. @@@@$

YOU CAN create Deskbar shortcuts to desktop searches in MSN Search Toolbar.

GOOGLE TOOLBAR 3.0 gives you a Web-form spell-checker, a word translator, and an AutoLink feature useful for ISBN numbers, VIN numbers, street addresses, and package tracking numbers.

WINDOWS DESKTOP Search can be handy for finding almost anything that resides on your PC, including music files.

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By Troy Dreier and Jamie Lendino