Playing catchup with Google is fast becoming Yahoo’s (and to a lesser degree, MSN’s) favorite pasttime, and Yahoo’s recent acquisition of file-search engine X1 seems like a predictable response to Google’s Desktop Search (currently still in beta). Now, I’m a pretty shameless Google groupie and I’ve been using the Desktop Search in conjunction with the Deskbar for the past two months already. I’ve gotten so dependent on them that I have a hard time working on any machine without these two utilities installed.
Being able to run web searches without using a browser window is a great space-saver, and being able to access the search field without using your mouse (a customizable shortcut combination will do) is even better.
One of the most obvious reasons to try out Yahoo’s new service when it becomes available is that it will be able to support alot more file formats than Google’s handful of friendlies (the most obvious being Yahoo Messenger conversations and downloaded Yahoo email archives, neither of which are currently searchable via Google’s engine). On the other hand, a 6mb download versus Google’s tiny 450kb wonder is going to be hard to sell to dialup users, or those who aren’t curious enough to wait that long.