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TECH
Fast File Retrievers
by Jeff Bertloucci

Your computer's hard drive is a stack of magnetically coated platters that warehouse your most precious information: financial portfolios, legal documents and pix of you parasailing in Barbados. And it can be a bear to browse. True, you can use the search program that comes with a Windows PC, but it's a second-rate sleuth that often takes minutes on today's gargantuan drives to ferret out a file.

A new crop of programs for Windows solves this problem. Like Windows' Search, these tools index the contents -- every letter and word -- of every file stored on your hard drive or other drives (such as the floppy, CD and DVD drives). But they're much faster than Windows, and they'll often find e-mail messages and contact names.

Each of these programs has a search box that lets you type in a word or phrase, at which point the file finder lists relevant matches. The best programs then open a viewer pane that lets you see the file contents without actually opening it -- a real timesaver when your search turns up a long list of hits.

The fastest file finder is X1 Search (www.x1.com), which, at $75, is the only program in this roundup that'll cost you money. X1 Search works like a greyhound on espresso. For instance, when you type the letter a into X1's file-search window, the program instantly lists every file on your PC that contains the letter a. Keep typing, and the list of matches shortens on the fly. By the time you've keyed in armadillo, chances are you've found the right file. Elapsed time: a few seconds.

Price is right

Copernic Desktop Search (www.copernic.com) isn't quite as fast as X1, but it makes up for lost nanoseconds by being free. And Copernic's presentation is clear and well organized. It separates matching files by folder, an approach that's easier on the eyes than X1's laundry list. Another nice touch is the Copernic Deskbar, a search window at the bottom of the screen that's great for quick queries. Copernic also does Web searches (X1 doesn't).

Google Desktop Search (http://desktop.google.com), the newest member of the search team, is a file finder that integrates seamlessly with Google's Internet search engine and runs on Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 and up, and on Windows XP. Simply type a word or phrase in the query box and click either "Search Desktop" or "Search the Web." It's brain-dead easy but not our favorite because it lacks a built-in viewer, requiring you to launch a big program to look at a file.

Another freebie, Lycos's HotBot Desktop (www.hotbot.com), is unique in that it works inside the Internet Explorer Web browser. It performs both local searches (on your PC and peripheral devices) and Web searches. HotBot Desktop also downloads RSS feeds -- typically news stories and opinion pieces from Web sites. As bots go, however, HotBot is a tad clumsy. In our tests, it locked horns with Windows' security settings.

Blinkx Desktop Search (www2.blinkx.com) also handles local and Web searches. Blinkx is speedy but lacks focus. It displays a pop-up summary of a document's contents but lacks a full-fledged file viewer.

All things considered, our pick is Copernic. It's a breeze to use, and you can't beat the price.

--Research: Elizabeth Kountze