Seeking a More Intuitive Search Tool

"A gaggle of contenders has recently put forth replacements for Microsoft's search. Some are popular Web portals -- Ask Jeeves, Google and Yahoo. Some are small, obscure developers -- Copernic and Blinkx. One's a division of Microsoft itself, its MSN Internet service.


All six of their search add-ons are free downloads: Ask Jeeves Desktop Search (sp.ask.com/docs/desktop/), Blinkx v2.0 (www.blinkx.com), Copernic Desktop Search 1.2 (www.copernic.com; a version of this should be offered by America Online soon), Google Desktop (desktop.google.com), MSN Toolbar Suite Beta (desktop.msn.com) and Yahoo Desktop Search (desktop.yahoo.com). All require Windows 2000 (news - web sites) or XP (save Copernic, which allows Win 98 or newer), and all but Google Desktop and Copernic are in test form -- though none crashed in a week of use."


[Washington Post]