Desktop Sidebar

[mouser]

http://www.desktopsidebar.com/index.html

haven't actually tried this yet but it looks sweet (freeware!)

[Jibz]

Looks very nice indeed .. I wonder how resource-hungry it is ..

[fhoyos]

I've used this app.
It's great but have some bugs.
my screen blink when start DS
in the other hand there are many plugins that work very well

[Steph]

I use this software for more than 1 year and it works great, I only have a little bug with 1 plugin (System Uptime plugin which cause a MS .Net error when playing video files with Media Player Classic)
Desktop Sidebar is a really good software, before this, I used SmartBarXP and another one which I forget the name but no one is as customizable as Desktop Sidebar, test it, you'll love it

[kartal]

This one seems very nice. I just installed on my laptop. It has relatively small memory print.

[Armando]

Tried it  2 years ago, and found it buggy. Just reinstalled it. Seems less buggy, but keeps stealing the focus. Can't even change the options without minimizing the app to the tray -- the sidebar steals the focus constantly. I could probably fiddle with it, but... Not today. Unless someone has some good advice/quick fix ?

[cmpm]

Google desktop search has a sidebar function but it was power hungry, and I decided to drop it.

They both look similar, you could add whatever google had to your side bar. And even detach them to make the individual items float.

I don't have the power to compare them, but as I recall it didn't do what I wanted sometimes.