Copernic Desktop Search vs. Blinkx

By Paul Kedrosky · August 31, 2004 · ·

Desktop search is never going to be a highly fundable investment category — rightly or wrongly, investors are just too skittish about the impending entry of Google, Microsoft, et al., — but I’m still an admitted search junkie. Call it the triumph of hope over experience: Maybe someone can help me make sense of my cluttered hard-drive.

Anyway, all of this is by way of explaining that I’m trying out the just-released desktop search tool from Copernic and comparing it to Blinkx, to which I’ve admittedly become increasingly attached. Here are some first impressions:

Likes

  • Good, clean display of results
  • Date-ordered categorization of results is useful, but it takes some getting used to
  • Quick preview is handy, containing a full view of document
  • Speedy
  • Google-like desktop search bar

Dislikes

  • No unified all-document search of email, files, etc.
  • No contextual search, a la Blinkx
  • Doesn’t simultaneously search web and desktop
  • Somewhat obtrusive results page
  • Routes web searches to AlltheWeb only
  • No selectable default search option when using desktop search bar

Conclusion

  • While Copernic Desktop Search is nice, it is not (yet) nice enough to unseat Blinkx from my toolbar.

[Update 9/1/2004] Martin Bouchard of Copernic is a friendly fellow who has been speedy and open-minded in spotting the above comments and sending me a couple of notes. As I said to him, I quite like what Copernic has done — it is a more solid-feeling app than Blinkx — but I do miss Blinkx’s contextual search.

Related posts:

  1. Desktop Search is (Still) All the Rage
  2. Is Blinkx Bling?
  3. Blinkx Searches for Cash — Sort of
  4. Google’s Puffin Changes Search Business
  5. Google Offers …Free Email?

Comments

  1. Bob Dobolina says:
    February 9, 2006 at 6:47 pm

    Copernic’s great, but I don’t use it for two reasons:
    1). It was causing my computer to hang when I tried to suspend it (repeatable and consistent behavior, which disappears when I uninstall).
    2). There’s no way to disable the Copernic auto-update feature. I happen to prefer an older version of Copernic to the newest version. I got tired of clicking, “No, No, NO! I don’t EVER want to update, dammit!!!”
    Otherwise, Copernic’s a great product. Currently, I’m using Lookout for Outlook, which is pretty darn good too. Google’s not bad. Not great–not bad.