CyberNotes: Performance-Friendly Desktop Search Applications

August 19th, 2008

12 Comments Written by Ryan

Time Saving Tuesday

Windows only
Searching for files on your computer was something that was once a tedious process, but in the last few years it has been one of the most talked about features in new operating systems. Sure you could always search for files on your computer, but do you remember when you’d have to sit there for several minutes while the computer scavenged everything on the hard drive looking for files and folders matching your search.

The benefit that search applications have these days is that they can index files on your computer so that search results are retrieved nearly instantaneously. Mac OS X 10.4 started doing this back in 2005 when Tiger it was released, and Vista followed it up with its own indexed search capabilities. Making search a strong focus of the operating system is a smart thing to do as it becomes harder and harder for users to find the files they are looking for. Without being able to search it can almost be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

What about the other operating systems like XP? Many of you have probably turned to Google Desktop or Copernic to do your searching, but I believe both of those programs use more resources than they need to. They’re constantly monitoring and indexing results on your computer, and Google Desktop even comes bundled with their own gadget/widget system.

Today we’re going to take a look at two excellent applications that focus on quickly searching for files on your computer without the unnecessary bloat. Both of them are free, use very little memory, and aren’t constantly indexing files on your computer… although they do use an index/database for retrieving results. Sound nice?

–Locate32 (Homepage)–

This is one of my favorite search applications for Windows XP, and it is always getting better. Locate32 is capable of indexing all of the files on your computer in no time at all, and after it’s done you can use the intuitive interface for searching and viewing results. It’s not the most snazzy-looking application, but functionality is more important than appearance when it comes to searching.

What does Locate32 have to offer? Take a look at some of my favorite features:

Search the contents of files (takes longer since the content is not indexed)
Save frequent searches as presets
Long list of customizable keyboard shortcuts
Pressing the Windows Key + F while in Windows Explorer brings up the search dialog, and sets it to search the current directory you were viewing
Huge list of options
and more…

The developers of Locate32 are currently on the homestretch to releasing version 3.1, and with it comes a lot of bug fixes and features. Things like find-as-you-type are automatically enabled making searches even faster and more natural.

Interface (Click to Enlarge):

Options (Click to Enlarge):

–Finder (Homepage)–

Finder, not to be confused with Mac OS X’s Finder, is a program that accomplishes the same goal as Locate32, but with a different interface. It will index your files and put search results on your screen in the blink of an eye.

There are some things that I like better about Finder, such as the wider interface, but generally speaking it’s not as powerful as Locate32. The more unique aspect of the program would be the things you can do with the search results:

Perform operations on files and folders (copy, move, etc…)
Designate default applications for specific extensions. You can customize what program is used to execute, view, and edit a particular type of file.
Copy path(s) or name(s) to the clipboard
and more…

A new version of Finder is in the works, but the developer is shooting for a November 2008 release. I can’t wait to see what good stuff is in store for Finder 3.

Interface:

Options (Click to Enlarge):

–Overview–

There’s one thing that I didn’t cover yet, and that is the performance of the two applications. Both of them are nearly identical coming in under 6MB of memory usage when they are active. That is significantly lower than most desktop search applications, and a large part of that is thanks to the on-demand indexing rather than trying to monitor your computer for new files. Both offer an option to only index the files that have changed since the last time the database was updated, which means the first indexing operation will be significantly longer than the others.

Let us know in the comments how you go about searching for files and folders on your computer. We are always interested in trying out new software!

This is just one of the hundreds of CyberNotes we have done. You can find more of them by visiting our CyberNotes category, or by subscribing to our CyberNotes feed. We also have a full feed available if you want to receive all of our articles in your reader!

Tags: CyberNotes, Freeware, Software, Windows, Applications, Features, How To

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August 19th, 2008 at 7:11 am DaComboMan

I still like Copernic, you can always exit to save resources.
I usually have it index when not using pc intensively then i exit the program and also knock it off the list of start up program.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:45 pm Jason

Question: do any desktop search applications support queries using flexible proximity operators? For example, “returns Star within 5 words of Banner”…?

I know Copernic can do it, but I think its locked in at 10 words apart?
August 19th, 2008 at 4:54 pm Ryan (Author)

DaComboMan wrote:

I still like Copernic, you can always exit to save resources.
I usually have it index when not using pc intensively then i exit the program and also knock it off the list of start up program.

True, you can definitely keep it from running all of the time. I don’t think it indexes quite as fast as these programs do though.

Jason wrote:

Question: do any desktop search applications support queries using flexible proximity operators? For example, “returns Star within 5 words of Banner”…?

Not that I saw unfortunately.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:00 pm Robert

Can either of these two programs search for text within documents?
I have been using Ava Find which is lightweight and very fast.
It can search for files but not the content of files.
It also is no longer in development.

I have used Windows Search before the new version 4 in XP.
It is excellent for searching within documents but is a
drain on resources and I uninstalled it.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:34 pm Fred Thompson

OS indexing adds overhead. It might not have that large an impact with modern computers. I still turn it off, it’s a habit from video capture a few years ago.
Here are a few other search programs that use regex:
Agent Ransack [mythicsoft.com]
BareGrep [baremetalsoft.com]
Seeker [veign.com]
The Agent Ransack site’s comparison chart is a little misleading. The free version has regex, just not Perl-compatible regex, or so they claim.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:03 pm Ryan (Author)

Robert wrote:

Can either of these two programs search for text within documents?

Locate32 definitely can, and it sounds like the other one is supposed to as well. I just couldn’t get it to work with Finder.

Fred Thompson wrote:

Here are a few other search programs that use regex:
Agent Ransack [mythicsoft.com]
I was actually going to include Agent Ransack in the review above, but I decided to go the route of focusing solely on the programs that index on-demand. It’s definitely a nice app though.

August 20th, 2008 at 8:30 pm Robert

Thank you, Ryan. Much appreciated.
I will now definitely try Locate32.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:24 am Change (All-Star)

Ryan wrote:

True, you can definitely keep it from running all of the time. I don’t think it indexes quite as fast as these programs do though.

Well, it naturally doesn’t index as fast because it indexes more. The content is also indexed, which adds to the resources used. I don’t see the resource usage as a problem though, because it’s only indexing when your computer is idle. Why do you see that kind of resource usage as a problem when you get so many advantages with it?

I use Copernic for content indexing (documents & emails) and AvaFind for quick file searching and seeing a list of recently changed files. After reading this article I’ll give locate a try to see if it can replace AvaFind on the computers where I don’t have a license for it, since that limits its usage quite a bit (and the fact that it’s not being developed anymore helps too).

Robert, as Ryan said in the article, locate does not index contents of files. So if you’re looking for that, I’d give Copernic a try. In my opinion it’s much better than WDS (and lighter on resources), which I have to use at work and frustrates me.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:35 am Robert

Change wrote:

Ryan wrote:

True, you can definitely keep it from running all of the time. I don’t think it indexes quite as fast as these programs do though.

Well, it naturally doesn’t index as fast because it indexes more. The content is also indexed, which adds to the resources used. I don’t see the resource usage as a problem though, because it’s only indexing when your computer is idle. Why do you see that kind of resource usage as a problem when you get so many advantages with it?

I use Copernic for content indexing (documents & emails) and AvaFind for quick file searching and seeing a list of recently changed files. After reading this article I’ll give locate a try to see if it can replace AvaFind on the computers where I don’t have a license for it, since that limits its usage quite a bit (and the fact that it’s not being developed anymore helps too).

Robert, as Ryan said in the article, locate does not index contents of files. So if you’re looking for that, I’d give Copernic a try. In my opinion it’s much better than WDS (and lighter on resources), which I have to use at work and frustrates me.

Thanks, Change. I will try Copernic as well then.
I am curious to its idle resource use when not indexing.
Windows Desktop Search was pretty heavy despite not indexing.

I might be content to live with longer content search with Locate32
since I do not frequently search for content but I do it more and more.

By the way, I had read that earlier versions of Copernic ran more efficiently
than the newer version, an unfortunate trend with most new software.
The earlier versions can be found but I will try the current one.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:44 am Change (All-Star)

True Robert, I had resource problems with CDS as well. I emailed them about it multiple times and finally it seems they’re working on it. They’ve already made some changes which fixed a few issues I was having (high CPU usage). The only problem left is that it took up to 800MB of RAM on my PC. It only happens when I’m not using the PC and they say it’s probably because of a faulty file on my computer, but it shouldn’t happen. Still trying to help them determine the cause of the issue. Normally it’s using ~18MB of RAM, which is fine with me, and it never slows my PC anymore while using it afaik.