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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Not that I saw unfortunately.