Desktop search tools compared

A gaggle of search engines compete with Google now to help you search for that elusive email message you just *know* you didn't delete. Some are well-known, such as "Ask Jeeves, Google and Yahoo, reports Washington Post tech writer Rob Pegoraro. "Some are small, obscure developers - Copernic and Blinkx. One's a division of Microsoft itself, its MSN Internet service." All six browser add-ons are free and can search your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents and audio and image files, and all but Ask can search PDF files and Outlook Express email, Rob writes. "But if you use a non-Microsoft mail program, only Blinkx and Google welcome you: The former works with Eudora, the latter with Netscape, Mozilla and Thunderbird. Thanks, Rob - it's great to have these little apps compared. I don't use desktop search a *whole* lot, but when I do I'm glad I have one of these add-ons - it makes searching my computer so much easier. In fact, it just makes it possible in most cases!