Author Topic: What is the currently best Desktop Search software? (Read 1,110,399 times)

Armando · « **Reply #325 on:** April 27, 2008, 12:12 AM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on April 26, 2008, 11:46 PM

I found it awesomly fast on my data files

Which one, Carol ? BareGrep ?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #326 on:** April 27, 2008, 12:57 AM »

Yep - I was amazed at how quickly it scanned a 30Gb partition for .doc files and then looked inside for text matches. Almost realtime! OK I haven't got thousands of DOC files but it had to scan all folders and there are a lot of them - and there are quite a few DOC files to check.

Armando · « **Reply #327 on:** April 27, 2008, 12:59 AM »

That seems pretty quick.

Thanks.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #328 on:** April 27, 2008, 01:19 AM »

Been playing a bit more.

It is very quick at finding files by name - takes a while (not surprisingly) to scan lots of file content.

I did a similar search on all my PDF files - I have a lot of those. It listed them all almost instantly but if I added a search for a text string in the PDF files it took a little while. Not bad though for an unindexed search - a lot faster than Windows Explorer search takes just to find the file names!

Curt · « **Reply #329 on:** April 27, 2008, 04:29 PM »

Of course I don't know how often or for how long you guys need to search, but I recommend the BareGrep pro DEMO version also. It has been my experience that all searches are done within the five minutes it officially will work (one time I had it running for 12 minutes) before it auto-closes . But then there is the annoying splash, hmm... however, I don't yet feel to pay $35 to have it removed, and for my few and very specific searches it has been enough to use the demo version. And for any other searches I will use Search GT or Quizo's internal.

[attachimg=#]

Darwin · « **Reply #330 on:** April 27, 2008, 04:43 PM »

Quote from: Curt on April 27, 2008, 04:29 PM

But then there is the annoying splash, hmm... however, I don't yet feel to pay $35 to have it removed

It's replaced by an annoying splash telling you that you're using a registered copy. Only way to close it is to click on the "x" in the upper right hand corner. It would be *almost* bearable if clicking or double-clicking on the splash would close it... This is not the case. I should contact the developer about this...

Curt · « **Reply #331 on:** April 27, 2008, 06:20 PM »

Were you talking about the PRO version?
edit - ~~somewhere~~ there ~~must be~~ is a mark to un/check:

Darwin · « **Reply #332 on:** April 27, 2008, 09:26 PM »

Doh! I was/am talking about the Pro version

I only recently purchased it and have not had much time to configure it... That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Thanks for correcting me on that, Curt

Curt · « **Reply #333 on:** April 27, 2008, 10:58 PM »

You're welcome, Darwin. I have been impressed with certain parts of BareGrep Pro (DEMO), but as I said elsewhere BareGrep doesn't support special national characters / Unicode ('æøå', etcetera), so I might never "feel" to purchase it.

Shades · « **Reply #334 on:** April 27, 2008, 11:39 PM »

Forgive me if the following doesn't belong in this topic, but here it goes anyway.

Besides this BareGrep tool I use another grep tool as well, that is called: AstroGrep http://astrogrep.sourceforge.net
This has a very handy "context lines" search option. There you can set how many lines will be shown above and below the search result.

It is slightly slower than BareGrep, but it is opensource so Curt will be able to make a request for supporting his special characters if it is not already there.

Curt · « **Reply #335 on:** April 28, 2008, 07:42 AM »

- is AstroGrep 'commandline' only?

Showing up to 10 lines from search result documents:

rjbull · « **Reply #336 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:34 AM »

Quote from: Darwin on April 27, 2008, 09:26 PM

Doh! I was/am talking about the Pro version I only recently purchased it and have not had much time to configure it... That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That prompted me to go looking - it's there in Preferences -> Options, "Hide splash screen at start up."

rjbull · « **Reply #337 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:36 AM »

Quote from: Shades on April 27, 2008, 11:39 PM

AstroGrep http://astrogrep.sourceforge.net
This has a very handy "context lines" search option. There you can set how many lines will be shown above and below the search result.

BareGrep Pro, which doesn't need .NET Framework

has "show hits in context," also simple highlighting, viz.:

Curt · « **Reply #338 on:** May 20, 2008, 09:58 PM »

So, which program did he rip off this time?

Desktop Search Express
http://www.thepickapp.com/desktop_search_express.html

[attachthumb=#]

rjbull · « **Reply #339 on:** May 21, 2008, 08:54 AM »

Quote from: Curt on May 20, 2008, 09:58 PM

So, which program did he rip off this time?

???

Quote

Desktop Search Express

Hmmm:

Quote

System Requirements:
Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP operating system.
.NET Framework Version 1.1

Win9x and .NET? I didn't think you could run .NET on Win9x?

Lashiec · « **Reply #340 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:05 PM »

Yeah, Windows 9x can use up to .NET Framework 2.0. Another story is if the program does support such OS (Paint.NET does not for example)

rjbull · « **Reply #341 on:** May 21, 2008, 04:06 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on May 21, 2008, 03:05 PM

Yeah, Windows 9x can use up to .NET Framework 2.0.

OK, thanks! DC is a great place for learning something you didn't know

Curt · « **Reply #342 on:** May 22, 2008, 12:43 PM »

Quote from: rjbull on May 21, 2008, 08:54 AM

Quote from: Curt on May 20, 2008, 09:58 PM
So, which program did he rip off this time?
Quote
???

- thanks for questening!
~~This is terrible; I confused~~ two logos and brand names - ~~most unfair! Sorry!~~

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=11947.msg97698#msg97698

PhilB66 · « **Reply #343 on:** May 22, 2008, 01:45 PM »

Quote from: Curt on May 22, 2008, 12:43 PM

Quote from: rjbull on May 21, 2008, 08:54 AM
Quote from: Curt on May 20, 2008, 09:58 PM
So, which program did he rip off this time?
Quote
???

- thanks for questening!
This is terrible; I confused two logos and brand names - most unfair! Sorry!

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=11947.msg97698#msg97698

Absolutely not. You "hit the nail on the head". Looks like this a$$[attach]

Darwin · « **Reply #344 on:** May 31, 2008, 09:26 PM »

Just an update: I'm running a trial of the latest version of X1 (6.2 build 3591) under XP Sp-3 with Office 2007 and so far it's running flawlessly. The hibernation/standby issue I complained about earlier (under XP Sp-2 with Office 2003) has been resolved somehow... I still prefer Archivarius' speed and ultra-light footprint, but X1's fabulous previewing capabilities make it a compelling complement to it...

Darwin · « **Reply #345 on:** June 03, 2008, 12:04 AM »

Heh, heh - as noted elsewhere ( see this post), I've also licensed dtSearch and love it... My software obsession of late has been for search tools and I have MANY. The three indexing options I use are Archivarius, dtSearch, and X1. Likely, though, I'll stick with X1 on my work machine and move dtSearch and Archivarius to my other machines. Archivarius is awesome in terms of the formats it supports, its speed, and its amazingly small footprint. I was very happy with it on its own for over a year and remain happy with it. Of late, though, I have missed the ability to preview my search results with formatting, which led me back to X1 and also to re-evaluate dtSearch. Both are excellent. dtSearch is lighter on resources and less intrusive, but generates a larger index file. X1 generates the smallest index and has the best previewing capabilities and Archivarius generates the largest index (up to four times the size).

Sorry, typing this is a rush job - my four year old is having a melt down and my attention has been split between this post and his tantrum! Happy days...

Lashiec · « **Reply #346 on:** June 03, 2008, 11:01 PM »

Wait, are you using three desktop search engines? Are you storing the indexes in a server?

Darwin · « **Reply #347 on:** June 04, 2008, 03:54 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on June 03, 2008, 11:01 PM

Wait, are you using three desktop search engines? Are you storing the indexes in a server?

My name is Mike and I am a software addict...

I'm running all three on a notebook with a 120GB harddrive... The indices combined total about 3GB - the largest being Archivarius at about 2GB with dtSearch weighing in at 580MB and X1 at 472MB... I still have about 20 GB free so am not worried. I *know* that I *should* settle on one (or at most two!) and uninstall what I'm not using, but then what would I do about the 15 file managers that I have installed, the multiple file/folder compparators, and the numerous reg-ex/text search and replace apps that I have installed. Then there are the office suites and the note takers/web archivers. Nope. Too many decisions

Dormouse · « **Reply #348 on:** June 04, 2008, 06:11 PM »

Quote from: Darwin on June 04, 2008, 03:54 PM

My name is Mike and I am a software addict...

I'm running all three on a notebook with a 120GB harddrive..

Well, I'm surprised that you can fit all your software into 120GB.

tomos · « **Reply #349 on:** June 04, 2008, 07:08 PM »

Quote from: Darwin on June 04, 2008, 03:54 PM

but then what would I do about the 15 file managers that I have installed, the multiple file/folder compparators, and the numerous reg-ex/text search and replace apps that I have installed. Then there are the office suites and the note takers/web archivers. Nope. Too many decisions

must make it a very expensive laptop Mike!