Google Desktop is a small and intelligent tool that locates files in your hard drive, and displays them in a web browser, the same way Google displays results of web pages.

Since this is an ad-supported application, users are advised to pay special attention when installing Google Desktop. It offers to set Google as your homepage and default browser search.

Once installation is complete, Google Desktop is displayed on the right margin of your screen (but you can move it to the left), in a sidebar. Here you can read useful tips on how to enable the quick search box, how to drag gadgets to the desktop and show/hide them. Else, you can minimize the sidebar to get more space and allow other windows on top.

The gadgets you can add to Google Desktop include web clips, news, weather, email, Google Talk, Photos, To Do's, RSS feeds, a scratch pad (where notes are automatically saved), and system monitor. The software also comes with improved web security (protection against malware and phishing).

In the Preferences section you can enable Google Desktop to index the items you search for - email, chats, web history, media files, text, Word, Excel, PDF, Powerpoint, archives, and others, even if there are password-protected Office documents or secured pages in web history.

Furthermore, you can enlarge or shrink the font, but you cannot change the default web browser launched by the application (i.e. Internet Explorer).

Google Desktop proves to be a reliable desktop organizer that uses minimum CPU and memory resources (and it's free). Too bad Google has discontinued this product.