6 of the Best Free Linux Desktop Search Engines

Desktop search is a software application which searches the contents of computer files, rather than searching the internet. The purpose of this software is to enable the user to locate information on their computer. Typically, this data includes emails, chat logs, documents, contact lists, graphics files, as well as multimedia files including video and audio.

Searching a hard disk can be painfully slow, especially bearing in mind the large storage capacities of modern hard disks. To ensure considerably better performance, desktop search engines build and maintain an index database. Populating this database is a system intensive activity. Consequently, desktop search engines will carry out indexing when the computer is not being used.

One of the key benefits of this type of software is that it allows the user to locate data stored on their hard disk almost instantaneously.

Such software performs in a similar way to Windows Search and Spotlight in Mac OS X. Only five of the 6 applications featured in this article are released under a freely distributable license. Please note that whilst Google Desktop is free to download, it is released under a proprietary license. Nevertheless, we did not feel that we could omit this established search engine.

Now, let's explore the 6 desktop search engines at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

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Last Updated Sunday, February 05 2012 @ 12:44 PM EST