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Google has released a desktop search application, in beta, and it’s available for public download. More info is available at ArsTechnica (I shan’t ever link to Slashdot!).

The program is simple: it indexes files on your computer (text files, Office docs, the browser cache, etc.) and allows you to search your computer via an interface identical to Google.com. This is accomplished by running a small Web server that serves only your computer.

Now frankly, this is a surprise to just about no one. For years, we’ve been hearing about how Google was going to challenge Microsoft on the desktop by offering a faster, more intuitive search. And this is a good first step. I like it. As I see it, here are the two key advantages of Google Desktop Search:

1. It’s fast. Damn fast. It can index your Outlook mail and search the mail as quickly as a normal Google.com query. For those of us using MS Outlook, this is a revelation in speed.

2. It allows you to search what you’ve already seen on the Web and what you haven’t yet seen. What do I mean by this cryptic statement? Sporting integration with search results on the Google.com Web site, a search at Google.com can now include search results from your computer as well. That is, if you search Google.com for “tom sherman,” it includes results not only from the Internet but from your local machine—including your browser cache.

   This is a killer feature. To my mind, the cache has always been an untapped goldmine. Its relevance to your searches is by definition high, since you’ve already visited the pages stored in the cache. Most likely, they were useful to you or relevant to your interests. What existing Internet searches have failed to accomplish until now is to tap this relevance in a search of Web resources (local and remote) beyond merely online Web pages.

I’d like to be clear in my praise of this program, however. I’m sure it will generate MUCH hype around the Internet as the “Windows Search killer” and other cute yet exaggerratory slogans. Windows Search killer it is not—yet. For example, it has no means to filter search results by date or file size, two criteria I find highly useful in Windows Search. Furthermore, it’s restricted to indexing text or text-like files, and if you’re looking for something else where the filename is your only hook, Google Desktop Search won’t help you.

That said, I’m excited about this program. I remain wary of the ubiquitious claim that “users will see no distinction in the future between their computers and the Internet”—you can find this sort of prognosticating all over tech sites and the like—but Google Desktop Search is useful in expanding the definition of a “Web search” to include the vital and relevant contents of the browser cache.

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