Desktop search engines

computer program

Wikimedia list article

Ask.com (known originally as Ask Jeeves) is an answer engine, e-magazine, and former web search engine, operated by Ask Media Group. It was conceptualized and developed in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen, based in Berkeley, California.

type of search engine

system-wide desktop search feature of Apple's OS X operating system

desktop search platform by Microsoft

fast freeware Windows desktop search engine by David Carpenter (voidtools)

Launchy is a free and open-source application launcher for Windows, , FreeBSD and Linux. It indexes shortcuts in the start menu, and files in specific folders, to allow quicker access to programs without opening the start menu or browsing to folders.

Web browser toolbar extension

Strigi was a file indexing and file search framework (see desktop search) adopted by KDE SC. Strigi was initiated by Jos van den Oever. Strigi's goals are to be fast, use a small amount of RAM, and use flexible backends and plug-ins. A benchmark as of January 2007 showed that Strigi is faster and uses less memory than other search systems, but it lacks many of their features. Like most desktop search systems, Strigi can extract information from files, such as the length of an audio clip, the contents of a document, or the resolution of a picture; plugins determine what filetypes it is capable

EXALEAD was a software company created in 2000 that provided search platforms and search-based applications (SBA) for consumer and business users. Headquartered in Paris, France, it was acquired by Dassault Systèmes in 2010 and integrated into subsidiary NETVIBES in 2022.

TinySPARQL (formerly known as Tracker) is a file indexing and search framework for Linux and other Unix-like systems. It is written in the C programming language.

Feature of Microsoft Windows