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What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

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xtabber:
far and away my favorite is File Locator Pro.  None of the other search engines I've tried comes close.
-cyberdiva (September 07, 2013, 07:25 AM)
--- End quote ---

 :Thmbsup: +1

I've also tried many and File Locator Pro is the only one I now use on a daily basis.

I do use dtSearch for research purposes, where I need to find some reference in the many thousands of (mostly pdf) documents I have accumulated, but dtSearch is overkill, to say nothing of too expensive, for most users

J-Mac:
Thanks all! So File Locator Pro is one to give a serious look, huh? OK, then I shall!

@Carole: How do I lose focus? I don’t - I almost never lose focus! Well, maybe sometimes I do nowadays....   ;D  Seriously though, the Start menu loses focus more often than I'd like. If my cursor strays outside the menu area and a popup occurs from any other software the Start menu - and therefore its search terms and results - are gone. Also if you click on one result and it isn't really what you thought, you have to start again and type in your search term(s), wait for results, etc. Of course I could wait for the first result and then click on the "See more results" link to open the explorer window, but I prefer a window to begin with. A simple search bar similar to the Start menu's search box would be fine if it couldn't lose focus, and if it did not lose all results upon looking at one result. That's a "fail" imo. But if it works for you, hooray!   :up:

Now, File Locator Pro. Hey, I remember downloading Agent Ransack in the past. I don’t think I actually installed it though. Apparently I should have. I guess I didn't expect much because it was free. Go figure.

Thanks again!

Jim

Jibz:
I ended up using Archivarius, because it supported some file types that the others did not (specifically it was able to index my old The Bat! e-mail archives). The author seems to work hard on supporting new formats, as an example it already has RAR5 support.

It's not as fancy as some of the others though, and probably not as integrated with Microsoft applications.

One nice thing about search software that builds indices, is that you do not need the original files to retrieve information. I have an index of a computer I had ten years ago, which lets me dig up old discussions about compression I saved back then, even though the hard-drive is long gone.

Joe Hone:
I don't know if it is the best, but I have been using Ultra FileSearch for 2 years and find it better than most that I've tried. I manage a large database and find myself daily needing to find documents based on specific text contained in them and by selecting the drive and specifying the text, the program gets me there without fail. They have a 30 day trial period on the full version, and a lite version with a few less features which is free.

michaelkenward:
The title of this now very old poll may be misleading, but if you look at the options you will see that it is about desktop "index and search software". In other words software that maintains a database of your data and uses that when you want to find something.

Ultra FileSearch "does not use background Indexing". It finds things "on the fly". It is not, therefore, comparable with the programs in the poll. It is a different beast.

Anyone whose task is to "find documents based on specific text contained in them and by selecting the drive and specifying the text" will almost certainly find that index and search software, any index and search software, will be quicker and more efficient than on-the-fly search and find software.

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