Computer search software. Overview of programs for searching documents and data

The advantage of the standard search is that you don't need to install anything additional on your computer!

But there is also a serious drawback - not all standard search works or does not work as we would like!

Therefore, in this article we will consider a separate excellent free program Everything, which allows you to very quickly, you can even say instantly (on the fly), find the files you need on your computer!

With Everything, you can search for files on your computer not only by the full name of the files, but even by part of the word! This is a great feature for situations where we don't remember the name of the entire file.

We simply enter a word or part of a word in the search field and immediately get the result! At the same time, surprisingly, Everything does not slow down the computer at all, as it happens with other programs.

Everything, is fast, light and handy program to search for files and folders on your computer.

Let's start a step-by-step analysis of installing and using this program.

1. How to download Everything in Russian

Let's say I don't remember where this book is stored on my computer.

To find it using the program Everything, I don't have to type all that long book title. I can type just a word book and get this result:

In this case, the search showed me that I have 33 elements in which the word occurs book. Moreover, the search results display all the elements by file type with the highlight of the word that I was looking for.

And I can already find the file I need in the displayed list and go to it by simply double-clicking on it quickly. If it is a file, it will open immediately. If it is a folder with files, then the folder will open.

Or I can narrow down the search so that the list of files is smaller. For example, I will write the word most. I instantly get the folder I need:

As you can see, finding files and folders on your computer is very easy with Everything. I am glad that it is free, in Russian and gives search results very quickly!

4. Everything advanced settings

Program Everything already optimally configured for most users. However, there are additional features that you can use if necessary.

So, for example, using the menu Search you can specify the criteria for displaying output: for files of certain formats, for folders, or all. Such restrictions can be useful if the name occurs in different files and the list of such files is large. And thanks to the restriction on certain categories, you can narrow down your search:

It would also be helpful to just look at the functions that can be found in the menu Service-> Settings. I repeat that by default everything is already configured for the requests of most users, but you may want to enable or disable some additional settings.

5. Portable version of the Everything search program

At the beginning of the article, we already talked about such a portable version of this program. Use the portable version as well as the stationary one. It is only worth mentioning that the portable version is packed into an archive.

Therefore, after downloading the archive of the portable version, you need an archiver so that you can open the archive. If the downloaded archive cannot be opened, then the archiver is not installed on the computer. In this case, download and install, the installation and use of which we have already covered in a separate article.

If you plan to use the portable version on a computer that you don't know what bit capacity, use an archive designed for 32-bit systems. Or better, download both versions - some will definitely start, otherwise it will simply display a message:

So: If you even have to search for files or folders on your computer from time to time, I'm sure you will appreciate this free program!

Download, use, share your impressions in the comments!

Hello guys. Tell me how much time it takes you to search for files on your computer. I think a lot, and even more so if you blog on the Internet or just a photographer. In this case, a very large number of files are collected. There are several ways to quickly find the file you need. For example like this or like this

It's good if you know for sure that they are there. And if you are looking for the right file and you know exactly what it is on the computer, and where and in what folder? Well, just sclerosis comes to visit. And then the FileSearchy program will help us. See its possibilities.

Great program, I use it myself often and recommend it to you.

She looks like this. On the left side there is a search bar where you must enter the name lost file. After that, click on the button located at the very bottom of the program window.

In less than five seconds, the program will go through all the hard drives and give out all the files that have the word that you entered in the search engine in the name. You see how the FileSearchy program works smartly, and if you manually started searching, you definitely wouldn’t fit in at the time for which the program coped.

So we are looking for all the files in which there is a match for our request. And there can be a lot of files in which there is the same word, and therefore we still have to lose some of the time. In this case, the program provides us with an advanced search. That is simplified.

Search files on your computer by type

If we need to find only pictures, then we are looking for pictures. If only folders, then we ask the program to show only the folders found under the name that we registered in the search engine. Generally sorted. Find all files and then select the file type , ticking the box.

This way you save even more time. FileSearchy can recognize file types such as images, audio, video, documents, programs, and folders.

FileSearchy has other options as well. For example, we only need files from the "D" drive. Under the search line, check the box next to the item “In the directory”. We will search in a specific place, and not in the entire computer memory. See the picture for how it's done.

By the way, the program allows us to select several places to search at once. Suppose on drive "E" and in one of the folders on any other drive.

It is also possible exclude from search some directories (drives or folders). This means that if you search on the whole computer, then those directories that are excluded from the search will simply not be scanned and will not appear in the result.

Please note that those folders and drives that are not scanned have an exclamation mark before the drive letter or folder name.


So by clicking on the arrow in the search, we will know what will be scanned and what the program will throw out of the search.

Well, and some more features of this program, which, in principle, I very rarely use. Although in some cases they will be very useful.

Searching for files in document content

In the search options there is an item "In content" This search mode is more related to the search for text documents. Suppose you forgot how the document was signed. For example, they downloaded a book from the Internet whose name was in English or in transliteration. You don’t know how to write correctly, but remember what words you met in it.

And two more filters that can be applied are search by date and size. Everything is clear here.

The version I'm using.

And for those who do not want to install the program on a computer, there is a portable version of a similar program. I must say right away that it is not so attractive in terms of interface, but it has its own interesting features.

You can learn about it and download from the official website http://www.voidtools.com

To say that in our time of information technology and the endless growth of the amount of data available to both an individual person and society, there are many problems with information processing and its search is already blasphemy. Who only does not raise this topic. And in order not to load you with subjective and, in part, objective judgments gleaned from various information sources regarding the problem, I will proceed directly to its solution. Let's talk about search today. That is, about programs and serious information systems that search for the documents and data we need.

Upgrade "direct search"

Not so long ago, when the trees were large, and information even in local network there were not so many enterprises, any search was carried out by a banal enumeration of a handful of available files and a consistent check of their names and contents. Such a search is called direct, and programs (utilities) using direct search technology are traditionally present in all operating systems and tool packages. But, even the power of modern computers is not enough for a quick and adequate search in gigantic amounts of data during direct search. Searching through a couple of hundred documents on a disk and searching in a huge library and several dozen mailboxes are two different things. Therefore, direct search programs today are clearly fading into the background - if we are talking about universal tools.

Of course, in the corporate sector, this type of search has not been in demand for a long time. Volumes are not the same. And, therefore, for many years now, and recently unequivocally, technologies capable of performing a quick and accurate search for documents of various formats and from various sources are more than relevant. Not so long ago, Microsoft's "father" Bill Gates, envying, apparently, the phenomenal success of the Google Internet search engine, at one of the press conferences announced the desire of the software (already and not only) in every possible way to promote, develop and deepen the creation of search engines and technologies. But before the creation of any phenomenal working program from Microsoft or a competitive server on the Internet, it is still too early (MSN still falls short of Google). Therefore, we turn to existing developments.

Index, query, relevance

At the heart of modern technologies are two fundamental processes. Firstly, it is the indexing of the available information and the processing of the request, followed by the output of the results. As for the first, any program (be it a desktop search engine, a corporate information system or an Internet search engine) creates its own search area. That is, it processes documents and forms an index of these documents (an organized structure that contains information about the processed data). In the future, it is the created index that is used for work - quickly obtaining a list of necessary documents according to the request. Further, although by no means simple in terms of technology, but it is quite understandable to the average user. The program processes the request (by keyword-phrase) and displays a list of documents that contain this keyword phrase. Since the information is contained in a structured index, the query processing is much (tens and hundreds of times!) Faster than in the case of a direct search (document selection is carried out not by enumerating files, but by analyzing textual information in the index).

The program displays the found documents in the resulting list according to relevance - the correspondence of the document to the query text. In different technologies, of course, there are different methods for searching and determining the relevance of a document (the number of "occurrences" of a word and its frequency of mention in the document, the ratio of these parameters to the total number of words in the document, the distance between the words of the query phrase in the searched files, and so on). Based on these parameters, the "weight" of the document is determined and, depending on it, one or another file appears in the list of results at a certain position. In the case of Internet search, the situation is even more complicated. Indeed, in this case, many other factors must be taken into account (Page Rank Google is an example of this). But this is a topic for a separate article, so we will not touch the Internet.

Search engine overview

This article discusses the capabilities of several popular search programs that boast both decent speeds and good functionality. But showing off in a flyer is one thing, but standing up to an expert's gaze is quite another. And there were neither many nor few experts, a full office of lovers to tinker with software for its usability. On a test computer (Athlon 2.2 MHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Seagate 7200 rpm IDE hard drive and Windows system XP) a set of programs was installed: dtSearch Desktop, Snoop Prof Deluxe, Google Desktop Search, SearchInform, Copernic Desktop Search, ISYS Desktop. For tests, a text base of documents was compiled in doc, txt and html formats with a total size of no more, no less, but 20 gigabytes. A group of comrades, under the guidance of your humble servant, tested, compared and shared their subjective impressions on each software. Read below for a summary of the findings.

dtSearchDesktop

A program that, according to the developers, claims to be the fastest, most convenient and best search engine. As, in general, and all the rest of this review. The interface of dtSearch is quite simple, but some windows or tabs are somewhat overloaded with elements, which gives the impression of being difficult to use. But in fact, there are no special difficulties. The only really unpleasant moment is the lack of support for the Russian language software (despite the fact that the program can search for documents in several languages, its interface is exclusively English).

But dtSearch is one of the few programs that can index web pages to a "depth" specified by the user (however, taking into account the "additional purchase" in the dtSearch Spider add-on kit). This is in addition to supporting files on disk in various text formats and emails from an Outlook mailbox. At the same time, the program does not know how to work with databases, which are such a tasty morsel for search engines due to the large amount of information they contain and the wide distribution in companies, and therefore in corporate networks. The indexing speed of dtSearch documents was up to the mark. Looking ahead, I will say that this program coped with indexing a given amount of information on a level with another contestant - iSYS - and shared second place with him in the list of the fastest systems. Test 20 gigabytes of information dtSearch indexed in 6 hours and 13 minutes, creating an index of 7.9 GB for the needs of subsequent search.

As for the search capabilities, they are up to the mark here. First, dtSearch has a morphological search (search for a word in all its morphological forms). Using this opportunity, you free yourself from, say, such thoughts as "in what case was a certain word used in the document I need?". The use of morphological search is almost always justified, so it should be present in any professional search engine.

Sound search is a non-standard feature even for professional search engines. Its essence lies in the fact that the program will look for words that sound the same as the word you entered. And the best part is, this feature works for the Russian language too! For example, typing the word "ear" in a search query will result in not only the words "ear", but also "ear".

Error-correcting search is a very important feature. It is used to search for words containing syntactical errors - these can be either typos or errors in documents obtained using character recognition systems, for example. A simple example is you are looking for the word keyboard. Some document contains the word "keyboard", it is obvious that in fact this word is "keyboard", just a person typing when typing. Now, error-correcting search, this will detect and include the document with the word "keyboard" in the result. Also in dtSearch there is a setting that allows you to determine the degree of possible erroneous characters.

Search using synonyms. This feature uses a list of synonyms for various words. So, for example, by entering the word "fast", the program will also find the words "high-speed" and others that are synonyms for the word "fast", if any, of course, are present in the list of synonyms. A ready-made list of synonyms is not supplied with the dtSearch program, however, it is possible to use the lists on the Internet (accordingly, a connection is required, which is not always convenient), or you can create your own list of synonyms.

In addition to the listed features, dtSearch can search using phrases consisting of words connected by logical operations. Each word in the query can be assigned its own "weight", that is, significance. A useful option is to use a dictionary consisting of unimportant words in order to ignore them when searching, but this dictionary is also empty and you will have to fill it yourself.

Next, consider the possibilities of the program when working on the network. In fact, dtSearch does not offer any specific networking capabilities. However, it is quite possible to use it on the network. Alternatively, you can create some index and put it in a public (shared) folder. The program itself can be installed for each user on a computer, or put it also on a folder open for public access, and create shortcuts in a special way for each user separately using the parameters command line, the purpose of which is described in the help file supplied with the program. Also, it is possible to automatically install the program on the network using an MSI file. This will take into account the settings for each connected user.

In general - a good program from the category of professional search engines. It may qualify for a good rating, however, gaining trust and respect from users may be difficult for dtSearch due to several factors (not everything is smooth with the interface, Russian users are deprived, there are no bright features for working with the network). As for the search for documents directly, the program did not have overlays with Russian text. As there were none with the declared morphology, or with a fuzzy search. The system quite adequately found the necessary documents both by a simple request in one word and by using a couple of paragraphs or any document as a key phrase.

Official website: www.dtsearch.com
Distribution size: 23 Mb

Bloodhound Pro Deluxe

Based on the name, you can guess that there is support for the Russian language in this program. It's already nice. As for the interface, in general, it is somewhat unusual, but very attractive in appearance. Another thing is convenience. A very controversial criterion, but still, probably, a multi-window solution is not the best option (the request is entered in one window, the result is displayed in another, etc.).

The Bloodhound still uses the same indexes to perform fast searches, but indexing is much slower than other programs. This is very strange, especially considering that its ability to process search queries is very weak, which means that the index structure is not complicated. Most likely, the point here is in non-optimized algorithms. This program turned out to be a clear outsider of indexing and search speeds: the time spent on creating an index is six times longer than that of the same dtSearch and iSYS. Indexing 20 gigabytes of texts for a bloodhound resulted in 38 hours and 46 minutes of work. And the created "search area" occupied the same size on the hard disk as the original data with a small minus - 19 gigabytes.

The Bloodhound can be presented as an alternative to the standard search in Windows, it is hardly capable of more. The fact that the primary task of the Seeker - the simplest search for files is indicated not only by a small number of functions for analyzing the text of search queries and an advanced search by file attributes, but even a results window that gives direct links to the found files, as well as to folders containing these files. The results window is not very informative in the sense that you can read the entire found file only by running it, that is, it does not have a built-in file viewer. But an excerpt from the file is given, where the searched word was found, in general, such a display scheme is very reminiscent of Internet search engines.

Speaking about the specific possibilities for processing search queries, it is worth noting that there is no such thing as "search for text", the maximum that can be searched is a phrase, if only because there is no multi-line text input field. Nevertheless, you can analyze the entered phrase, and the Bloodhound offers us here a standard search set: logical operations, search by mask and quote search ... not a lot. There are some rudiments of morphological search in the program, but probably so raw that it rather interferes with correct work (during the tests, a lot of overlays with incorrect use of morphology were noticed).

But the program allows you to specify file attributes (document date, file name, folder name) when searching, and in these queries you can also use the same search set. Also, you can search for messages by specifying the parameters (From, Subject.... etc.).

So, we figured out the search itself, what else is interesting about the program, for which it received so many awards, according to information from the official website? It's hard to say what's so special about it, most likely, the Bloodhound's interface is conducive to itself (just outwardly, not to mention usability).

Operations with indexes are very standard, the nice thing is the ability to update indexes on a schedule. In addition, indexes can also be used online. From now on, we need to be more specific.

Despite the primitiveness of search queries, the program can be used to search for files, so its use can be justified in networks. Though with a big stretch, since in a large network the priority is to quickly search for data using complex search queries due to the huge amount of information - and there are clearly problems with the speed of the search and the program. I must say that the work with the network at the Bloodhound is thought out as it should. A separate application is designed specifically for this - Bloodhound Server. It works in the same way as just the Bloodhound (they have one search engine), only for documents hosted on a central server or on shared resources on a corporate network. Bloodhound Server creates new indexes on shared resources or uses previously created ones. Any user on the corporate network can connect to the Bloodhound Server and use it to access any document (located in the current index) using an Internet browser. Agree, such a scheme is extremely convenient: it turns out that files on your own network can be searched in the same way as information on the Internet through, for example, Google.

Evaluating all the advantages and disadvantages of this program, the conclusion suggests itself that for corporate networks its capabilities will most likely not be enough (despite the good organization of networking), but for a home computer or even for a home network, it is, in principle , might fit. Although neither the speed of work, nor the search capabilities inspire optimism ...

Official website in Russian: www.isleuthhound.com/ru
Distribution size: 6 Mb

Google Desktop Search + GDS Enterprise

Of course, we could not ignore such an eminent developer. The name Google already speaks volumes. People who have been using the most powerful Internet search engine for years will probably decide to install this particular search engine on their computer without a single doubt. It's like thinking: Google on your home computer! However, without succumbing to provocations with a widely promoted brand, let's try to soberly, and most importantly objectively, consider the possibilities of the "desktop" search engine from Google.

The first thing that catches your eye is the lack of its own shell for the program. Google Desktop Search is still in the browser window, respectively, the entire interface of the desktop version went to the software from the older Internet brother. Whether this is good or bad is a debatable issue: someone likes the minimalism in the design of this search engine, and someone wants to see a full-fledged application filled with all sorts of buttons and so on.

What catches your eye right after the design? And the fact that this same Google Desktop Search starts indexing everything on the computer, without any demand for it! And what is most interesting, it is impossible to choose indexing paths using Google Desktop Search. You will have to download a separate program (TweakGDS), which will allow you to somewhat expand the Google Desktop settings, including specifying the places necessary for indexing. Although, while you figure it all out, it will already index the standard hard drive, so this setting is needed more when working with large amounts of data, which is very important when used in corporate networks (Enterprise version). However, it is not a fact that after downloading TweakGDS, your problems will be solved. After all, it needs Microsoft . NET Framework and Microsoft Scripting Runtime. Yeah... installation, as well as access to the settings, could have been made easier, although, probably, developers can understand: why write something new when there is already a ready-made search engine, ported it to a local computer and let the user "enjoy" , and a well-known name will make another masterpiece out of "this". C'mon, let's finish this lyrical digression and move on to the search.

As for the analysis of search queries and the issuance of results, everything here is absolutely identical to Google on the Internet: the same system for displaying results, the same standard set of logical operations for search queries. In general, Google Desktop Search, like the previous program, is designed exclusively for searching files - of course, there is no internal viewer for these files. The number of file formats supported by Google Desktop Search is quite sufficient, and it's also nice that it searches the visited Internet pages, taking data from the cache. Search and indexing speeds are quite acceptable. True, for home use. With an impressive 20 gigabytes of texts, Google Desktop Search managed in 8 hours and 17 minutes. Spend a few days processing information from the corporate network of a large enterprise does not smile at any system administrator. On the plus side: the size of the created index turned out to be at the level (4.5 GB) with another search engine tested in this review - SearchInform.

A big advantage (or omission - you decide) of Google Desktop Search is that it supports plugins that can change a lot of things for the better. Another thing is that connecting plug-ins and configuring them complicates the task of installing a search engine so much that you start to wonder if all this is necessary when you can install a normal, full-fledged program in which everything will already be present. After all, to use each feature, you will have to install a new plugin. Even in order for the program to fully work with archives, a separate lotion is needed. It fascinates and seduces the free of charge of all these additional modules. However, if you do not take into account the desktop version of the search engine, then competently setting up GDS Enterprise may not be within your power - it's not in vain that Google specialists offer their services to set up their own software for your network for only $10,000.

If you nevertheless master the setup and installation procedure (or pay $ 10,000 to the Google quick response team), you will understand that the complexity of the installation is more than offset by very flexible settings when used in corporate networks. An important aspect of the work of Google Desktop in a corporate network is the use of group policies, which makes it possible to set settings for each user.

Summing up, it should be said that the most reasonable use for this program is a home or work computer. Indeed, for a regular computer, it is enough just to install the program - it will do the rest itself (it will not even ask you about anything).

However, Google Desktop Search Enterprise will be acceptable in cases where there is an urgent need for flexible network policy settings for using the search engine, while the ability to process search queries will be in second place in importance, and the time (or money) spent on setting up the program will come first. place.

Official site: www.google.com
Distribution size with TweakGDS: 1.2 Mb

Copernic Desktop Search

Click on the picture to enlarge

The interface of the program evokes extremely positive emotions - everything is done in accordance with generally accepted standards, nothing more, in a word, a pleasant design. It will be very easy for a beginner to understand the interface of Copernic Desktop Search. Although, it is somewhat embarrassing that the designers explicitly created the program's interface, taking into account the fact that the program will work in the standard Windows XP theme. When using the same classic theme, the program does not look so pretty. But this is more a matter of taste.

At the first start, the program offers to create indexes for searching. It seemed somewhat unusual that after selecting folders for indexing, the program does not offer to press any button, like "Start indexing", while indexing does not start automatically, only then it was noticed that Copernic tries to start indexing when the computer is idle. You will have to dig a little in the program options to set everything up properly. It should be noted that there are fairly wide options for setting up automatic index creation: a built-in scheduler, the ability to index when the computer is idle, in the background, with a low priority. Indexing was not too fast - 10 hours 51 minutes - this is slower than in other search engines (except for the Bloodhound, yet Copernic is an order of magnitude faster than the development of iSleuthHound Technologies.

Now about the structure of the index. In general, there is nothing special about it. It is possible to select file types, both in a generalized form and in a detailed one. That is, initially you can choose what you want to index - Documents, Images, Videos, Music. On the other tab of the options window, it will be possible to select specific file types by extension. Additionally, you can configure the index in such a way that, for example, pictures less than 16x16 in size are not indexed or sound files less than 10 seconds long are not indexed. In addition to indexing files from folders, Copernic can work with emails and contacts from the address book of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express, it is possible to index Favorites and History from Internet Explorer.

As for the search capabilities, they are very weak here. During the tests, it was even revealed that the program does not search for documents in txt and html formats in Russian, allowing you to find them only by headings, and by no means by content. The only thing that the program provides to improve search efficiency is the use of a standard set of logical operations, and even then, this feature was discovered experimentally, since it was not documented. By the way, the program's help is also not all right - it is available only via the Internet, which, you see, is very inconvenient, and there is not too much help information on the network. Apparently, the developers decided that the simple interface of the program does not imply the presence of normal help. Continuing the conversation about the search capabilities, it should be noted that, despite the poor analysis of queries, the program provides an interesting search system - the user can select the type of files (images, videos, music, etc.), enter a search query and select attributes that are specific to selected file type. For example, for sound files, these can be values ​​from mp3 tags (artist, album, date, etc.), for images, for example, you can choose their size (by resolution), in general, each type has its own settings. After searching for a certain type of files, the program will display a very informative list in the results window, and if your request includes files of other types, you can open them by clicking on a specific link.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the result display window. The contents of these files are displayed below the list of found files (a similar scheme is often used in email clients). True, text can only be viewed in its native format, and there is no plain text display mode, which is not always convenient, since opening a document in this case takes more time. But, given that Copernic can search for images and music, there is the possibility of viewing these multimedia files.

The basic principles of this program have been described, now let's see what Copernic Desktop Search can offer us for working with the network ... In principle, you can watch for a very long time, but you are unlikely to see anything. In other words, this program was not conceived as a network one. Copernic Desktop Search is exclusively a home search engine.

Obviously, the only (most logical) use of this program is a home computer. Here, it will quite cope with all the simple search queries of users consisting of one or two words, find the necessary information, and the separation of the search by file type and support for multimedia files, along with background indexing in low priority mode, coupled with a pleasant interface, only give the program strength to gain trust among inexperienced users.

Official site www.copernic.com
Distribution size: 2.6 Mb

ISYS Desktop

Click on the picture to enlarge

A very powerful program. In terms of the level of equipment with all sorts of functions, it is somewhere near the next SearchInform search engine in the list. At the same time, the size of the installation file is more than 40Mb! It's hard to say what could be stuffed into such sizes, because the same SearchInform, with similar functionality, takes 15Mb.

The installation process here is also not very pleasant, or rather not even the installation process. Even before downloading the program, you will be asked to register, otherwise - nothing. Next, the interface. It is made very nicely, nothing superfluous catches the eye, however, these are the impressions of a person who is already somewhat accustomed to him. It will not be easy for a beginner to figure out where and what is, where to click and where to finally search. It is highly recommended to read the help before starting work - save a lot of nerves and time. To everything else, the complete lack of support for the Russian language in the program is also added. Not good. In addition, the windows here are not overloaded with controls, but this came at the cost of multi-modularity and the use of additional windows. For example, search queries are entered by running one program, and indexes are managed using another program. Search queries are also entered here in separate, appearing boxes. It's hard to say which is better - overloaded interface or ubiquitous multi-window, rather, it's a matter of taste.

As for creating indexes, the program provides options to simplify the process of setting options for a new index. These features include several out-of-the-box templates for creating indexes for My Documents, Mail, Mail & Documents, Specific Folder, Folder with Select File Types, and more. These templates make it easy to create indexes on the first stage. The utility for working with indexes has a not very good interface that scares off some complexity (this is a very subjective assessment, to be honest), but if you look at it, it provides many useful options and, in general, its use does not cause much difficulty. ISYS Desktop is able to index data from various data sources, and also provides many flexible settings for such indexing. Additional indexing features include support for SQL, FTP, TRIM Context, WORLDOX 2002, scripts. When creating an index, if you selected the "Folder with a choice of file types" option, you have the opportunity to select the types of files to be indexed manually (by extension). It must be said that there are simply a huge number of supported file types, but it will not be possible to add your own type (extension) to the existing list. You can also note the presence of an indexing scheduler. ISYS Desktop took 6 hours and 13 minutes to create an index and process 20 gigabytes of information, eventually showing a good time and the size of the created file - 7.9 GB.

The search capabilities of this program are not bad. What is used in ISYS is much more powerful than the usual support for logical operations. Of the advanced search features, the program offers the use of synonyms, sorting filter (by path, name and date of creation of the file). The set of logical operators is somewhat wider than the standard set. In addition to logical operations, the program allows you to work with many other operators that, in principle, can replace some types of search, for example, search with parsing can be completely replaced by using special operators. I was very surprised that the program does not have a search using morphology. This is a serious omission, since search efficiency is greatly improved when using morphological analysis. In addition, there is no list of significant words, but there is an extensive list of non-significant words. Also declared such functions in the search as "approximate search" and "heuristic analysis".

ISYS provides a choice of several types of search queries, namely visual ones. This is done using different types of windows for entering search queries, however, in fact, no window allows you to use technologies other than those listed above.

The search results are very informative, displayed as a list of documents sorted by relevance. Below is a preview of the selected document. Unlike Copernic Desktop Search, the preview here is available only in the form of plain text, it was not possible to achieve the display of documents in the native format, be it Word, Html or PDF, although in principle this is not too critical. The program allows you to divide the found documents into groups according to certain criteria (by default, they are divided by relevance). You can also view already found documents by selecting individual folders (this is useful when the result produces a very large number of documents).

Using the program in a corporate network is also quite justified, as it provides good opportunities for organizing network searches. The search system is based on the creation of a public index, which contains indexed data from public network resources.

In fact, the program from ISYS is worthy of attention, at least getting acquainted with it. This program is a mature project with a huge number of functions (not always and not everyone, of course, needs them, but still). The chances that the program will have some improvements in the processing of search queries are not known, but at the moment it can be recommended for almost universal use. And given that it is still too heavy for home systems, the main places for its installation are corporate networks.

Official site: www.isys-search.com
Distribution size: 40 Mb

SearchInform

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It's probably not worth starting right away with a description of the SearchInform interface. We should first describe the installation process, or rather one of its details: you will not be able to install the program without an Internet connection. The fact is that before the first launch, the program requires user registration (free of charge) and sends all the entered data to the server. Apparently, the developers had to take such measures in the fight against piracy, but this did not positively affect the ease of installation.

The program interface is made in compliance with all generally accepted rules, however, at first glance, it is somewhat cumbersome. Using the program for the first time, it seems that it is too complicated, sometimes it is not easy to remember which menu or tab the desired option is on, however, with longer use, the interface no longer seems so terribly complicated. The main thing is to read the help first.

Having dealt with the interface a little, you can start creating an index. The process itself is very simple and the indexing speed, even by eye, is much higher than all other search engines from the review. Clear test numbers show that SearchInform is twice as fast as dtSearch and iSYS in terms of indexing speed! The program indexed the provided data in the amount of 20 gigabytes in record time - 3 hours 17 minutes. And the size of the created index turned out to be the smallest 4.4 GB - 100 megabytes less than that of Google Desktop Search.

The program supports, in addition to regular files and folders, also indexing emails, connecting and indexing databases (!) And other external sources (DMS, CRM), immediately when indexing, you can specify a dictionary for morphological search, and all attributes can be indexed files. After creating an index, when trying to conduct the first test search for documents, you can come to some confusion: "there are two types of search, but which one do I need?". As mentioned earlier, the main thing is to read the help, then everything will become clear. The program is really able to perform two types of search - a phrase search and search for documents that are similar in content to the query text.

The description of all the main functions for analyzing a search query was given above, so now we will only list the search capabilities provided by this program. Let's start with phrase search: of course, morphological search, quotation search, logical operations, word parsing search (search by the beginning of the word, by the end, by the middle part, or a complete match), mixed quotation search (when all words from the query must be present in the document, but not necessarily in the order entered), error-correction searches, use of synonyms, "almost quotation search" (search for the entered phrase as a quotation, but there may be other words between the entered words), etc. Some of the listed options have their own specific settings. In addition, it is possible to use a dictionary of insignificant words, and the program already has a ready-made list of these words, you can also use a dictionary of priority words for searching (of course, you will have to fill it out yourself).

Here, in principle, we briefly ran through all the main features of phrase search.

Let's move on to the consideration of the features of this program - the search for similar documents. The developers claim that this is by no means a simple text search, this is exactly a "search for similar" - that's how they describe it everywhere, but okay, you can call it whatever you like - the main thing is. A short Internet search can quickly reveal that the so-called "similar search" is a new development in the field of text analysis. This system allows you to find texts that are similar in terms of semantic content. The most pleasant thing was that after conducting test search queries, it turned out that the theory is quite consistent with practice! The program really searches for documents similar in content and displays them in a list, sorted by similarity percentage.

Next, let's look at what SearchInform offers (in particular, its corporate version SearchInform Corporate) for working in a corporate network. There are two types of applications: server side and user side. The server part independently processes the specified indexes, and users can use them for searching, depending on the access rights assigned to them. Users can be configured automatically using Windows accounts (in professional terms, SearchInform uses Windows NTFS authentication) or manually (users will have to be added individually). Each user can be allowed or denied access to certain indexes, you can also combine users into groups. In general, SearchInform's network settings are ahead of Google in terms of flexibility, and Snoop Server in terms of convenience and simplicity.

Official site: www.searchinform.com
Distribution size: 14.7 Mb

Comparison of indexing speeds

* Most of the .html and .txt documents containing Russian text, although they were indexed, were impossible to find except by their names.

Summary

All programs are worthy of attention.

Based on the tests and careful examination of each program presented in the review, certain conclusions can be drawn. So, Google Desktop Search Copernic Desktop Search is quite suitable for an inexperienced user as home information search systems. They do a good job with simple requests, do not load the user much with settings, and, moreover, are completely free. Google's attempt to enter the market of corporate search engines is not yet strongly justified: for full-fledged work, the program needs to be hung additional modules And it's far from easy to set up. Therefore, speaking the names of Desktop Search, that Copernic, that Google leave behind them a niche of "desktop" search engines.

True, more powerful solutions - dtSearch, iSYS and SearchInform are also not out of the blue and offer users their "desktop" versions. But at a reasonable price, unlike free software from Google and Copernic. Of course, you have to pay for power, speed and functionality. But the developers of dtSearch, iSYS and SearchInform make their main focus, of course, on the corporate sector. Networking, functionality, indexing and search speed - that's what distinguishes these products from their "competitors". According to the results of the test, the favorite was determined - SearchInform. The program provides the ability to search for similar documents, has the highest indexing and search speed, and has a good set of features.

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