Author Topic: Find&Run Robot owns desktop search (Read 14889 times)

neubrain · « **on:** September 17, 2005, 10:38 PM »

I just posted my review of Find&Run Robot at http://www.snapfiles...d_and_Run_Robot.html , which should appear within 24 hrs. Having tried many other desktop search tools, including Copernic, Yahoo, Google, and MSN desktop search, I think Find&Run Robot beats the pants off of all these. It doesn't use indexing like other programs (which consumes harddrive space), yet it's lightning fast. I don't use it to just search programs, but pdf, chm, djvu, and other files of interest. This program is really awesome. Thanks Mouser! When I have more money, I will donate to your cause. Until then, please keep up the excellent work.

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** September 17, 2005, 10:49 PM »

thanks, i really appreciate that!
make sure you read over the planned features for version 2 that aren't finished being implemented yet and add any suggestions you might have.

it's actually extremely useful to get suggestions from people who have tried other programs - and btw check the help file for F&R for lists of other similar programs worth trying.

lastly - i should note that when people add reviews of our programs to sites like snapfiles, it helps us a lot in terms of getting out the word about our site and letting people know about our programs. so thank you for taking the time to do that, it really means a lot.

neubrain · « **Reply #2 on:** September 17, 2005, 11:19 PM »

Thanks for the reply, Mouser. You are a coding genius. The feature requests for F&R v2 sound great, I'm looking forward to it. I will post additional reviews over F&R when the opportunities present themselves, and would recommend others who use the program do the same to promote this excellent program to others. Comparison to MSN, Google, and Yahoo desktop search was maybe slightly unfair because they index file content, whereas F&R searches files names. Nonetheless, since I use filenames to summarize file content, searching through file names quickly is the ideal search app for me, and it is still my contention that F&R beats the pants off of all other desktop search apps. There is a similar program, called Instant File Name Search ( http://www.sowsoft.c...ad/InstantSearch.zip ), which I had used earlier but ultimately gave it up because it relied on indexing (I hated having to wonder if the last indexing occured after the addition of new files I was searching for) and because it consumed hundreds of MBs of working set memory when it would load the huge index it would create off my harddrive. F&R does not suffer from these problems and I predict I'll be using this software for a very long time. I still can't get over how fast it is. This is the perfect program for me for searching for files, and I suspect that people who like speed without bloat and huge index files consuming their hardrives will truly appreciate this program.

nontroppo · « **Reply #3 on:** September 18, 2005, 10:01 AM »

Post on the Opera forums:

http://my.opera.com/.../topic.dml?id=101600

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** September 18, 2005, 01:12 PM »

cool

m_s · « **Reply #5 on:** September 18, 2005, 01:47 PM »

I am ignorant - please forgive me if this is a stupid question: can FARR search for text inside files in the way other desktop search programs can? I use Google Desktop, mainly in my work in a charity, where I find it very useful and I like it, but it really bothers me that it clashes with NOD32, and I'm concerned about the various privacy issues that have been raised around it. If I could use FARR in its place, I would be a happy man...

nontroppo · « **Reply #6 on:** September 18, 2005, 02:12 PM »

No it can't, though it has been discussed in a limited sense for a possible future version.

mouser · « **Reply #7 on:** September 18, 2005, 02:13 PM »

this is an important point -
FARR does *NOT* search *inside* files.

there has been some discussion about giving FARR a more traditional file search mode that would also let you search inside files, but this has not been implemented yet.

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** September 18, 2005, 02:29 PM »

i'm thinking of a plug-in system
that would be used to support things like searching firefox bookmarks,
and could also be used to do thing like perhaps piggyback on google desktop or copernic or yahoo or msn desktop search databases and return results from them.

m_s · « **Reply #9 on:** September 18, 2005, 02:57 PM »

Are you aware of Getchoo? It's at http://alilm.needlemen.com/drupal/, and both nice-looking and quick - it accesses the GDS database slightly differently to GDS, I think, though I can't exactly remember what the difference is. It's had quite a lot of discussion over at aqua-soft.org. I would love to see FARR doing something like that - and I'm one of the people who would like it to be skinnable too, or at least to respond to WindowBlinds skinning.

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** September 18, 2005, 04:00 PM »

that's exactly what i had in mind in terms of a plugin for FARR - a simple interface that would allow FARR to search the google desktop database on your computer; seems like that might in fact offer the best of all worlds - index full text search IFF you want it and install google desktop search engine, or skip it if you don't want it.

m_s · « **Reply #11 on:** September 18, 2005, 04:51 PM »

That sounds great! Looking forward to seeing this developed further... Has there been a dc review of desktop search tools? I'll take a look at the list.

m_s · « **Reply #12 on:** September 28, 2005, 03:59 PM »

My request for the first F&RR plugin: search The Bat! email. I'm disappointed that none of the mainstream (free) Desktop searchers seem to index The Bat! I've come across two commercial ones that do, but I don't think any of the free ones do. I really need such a tool in my work, and I don't find the native Bat! search is powerful enough.

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** September 28, 2005, 04:27 PM »

if there isnt a plugin for searching thebat mail from google desktop search / msn desktop search, there will be one soon -
i think the strategy for F&R will not be to try to compete with these search tools, because its not a winnable battle.

INSTEAD,
i propose that F&R get some plugins that let it search the databases of google desktop search, msn search, etc.
that way we can take advantage of all their hard work.

m_s · « **Reply #14 on:** September 28, 2005, 04:56 PM »

Good point - makes sense. Only thing with GDS is that it clashes with NOD32. I've just uninstalled GDS for this reason. Now I'm trying Yahoo Search.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #15 on:** September 28, 2005, 06:13 PM »

MSN Search seems to coexist quite happily as does Copernic.

Personally I have given up on all of them - they seem to use an inordinate amount of disc space and keep the hard discs chuntering away permanently - I can do without that.

m_s · « **Reply #16 on:** September 29, 2005, 03:35 AM »

I have wondered about that! When they're useful, they're very, very useful - but they're not useful all the time. I'll take a look at MSN - no, I won't.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #17 on:** September 29, 2005, 03:46 AM »

Actually I tried most of them and found MSN to be the least intrusive (surprisingly for MSN) ...

m_s · « **Reply #18 on:** September 29, 2005, 04:02 AM »

Okay then, I'll give it a try. Downloading now....

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #19 on:** September 29, 2005, 04:15 AM »

Just make sure you do a custom install and read the options carefully - otherwise you end up with changed home pages, toolars etc. that you don't necessarily want/need.

m_s · « **Reply #20 on:** September 29, 2005, 04:39 AM »

I see what you mean, Carol! And damn but it's persistent in trying to change my .eml associations to Outlook Express! I hate this kind of behavious so much that I will probably ditch it. Has anyone tried Archivarious 3000? I came across it at this well-known site that compares all the desktop search products - it's the only one that indexes 'The Bat!': http://www.goebelgro...om/desktopmatrix.htm But it is a commercial product, so there's a charge...

mouser · « **Reply #21 on:** September 29, 2005, 04:44 AM »

i tried archivarious and liked it; it was also the only one at the time to index .chm files (i think a couple others do now too).
HOWEVER, it crashed trying to index my thebat files at the time i tried it

m_s · « **Reply #22 on:** September 29, 2005, 05:16 AM »

I had no problems at all, and it worked very quickly and well - and the searching is lightning fast. It seems to me a cut-back, essentials-only kind of program. I like it, and after playing with it for awhile, I intend to post my first mini-review over in that section.

kevin_meza · « **Reply #23 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:14 PM »

Guys... I never get the lincese of the Find &Run.... I think is a grate tool.. but that message to visit the forum is really anoying....

...
Please send me a lincese... I suscribed myself already... and nothing....

Kevin Meza

mouser · « **Reply #24 on:** October 11, 2005, 04:55 PM »

hi kevin,

you can download a freeware license key that removes that message here: https://www.donation...r.com/Keys/index.php

there are instructions on that page on how to enter the license info.

[i dont think this applies to you but if anyone donates and finds that their forum account still lists them as 'visitor' at the top of the forum page, don't hesitate to email me ([email protected]) to tell me i haven't upgraded your account yet].