Google Downloads
From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, by MultiMedia
Downloads
Deskbar
In December 2003, Google launched the beta version of the
Google Deskbar, a search tool which runs from the Microsoft Windows taskbar,
without a browser having to be open. It can return film reviews, stock
quotes, dictionary and thesaurus definitions, plus any pre-configured search
of a third-party site (e.g. eBay or Amazon). In November 2004, Google
launched an API for Google Deskbar.
Desktop
Main article: Google
Desktop
Google Desktop enables desktop search. It
runs locally on a PC and will index all Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express,
Netscape Mail, and Thunderbird emails, text documents, Microsoft Office
documents, AOL Instant Messenger conversations, Internet Explorer, Mozilla,
Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape history on that PC, PDF, music, images, video,
and allow the user to search them from a browser.
Google Desktop 2 (beta) was released on
August 22, 2005. The new feature that distinguishes Desktop 2 from Desktop
is the addition of Sidebar which is placed on either side of your Windows
desktop and can display real-time news, e-mail, photos, stocks, and weather,
among others.
On November 3, 2005, Google "graduated" Desktop from beta. ()
Earth
Main article: Google Earth
On June 28, 2005, Google made available Google
Earth as a downloadable program for free. It uses Keyhole technology to
allow customized use of Google Maps, with
e.g. map images with town and street names overlaying satellite images. For
some areas these overlays are available even though Google
Maps by itself does not provide these.
Screenshot from Google Earth
Main article: orkut
Though not mentioned on the Google homepage, orkut
is a service hosted, created and maintained by Google engineers.
Orkut is a social networking service, where users
can list their personal and professional information, create relationships
amongst friends and join communities of mutual interest. Affinity engines, a
company based in Palo Alto, has filed a lawsuit accusing that
Orkut Büyükkökten, a co-founder of the company,
illegally took the code, which he wrote for the company, for use in Google.
There is some speculation saying that orkut and
Gmail are part of a Google effort to gather
information about their users, with the intention of offering a better
personalized search service in future. Google already has a personalized
search in Google Labs.
Main article: Picasa
On July 13, 2004 Google acquired Picasa, software
for management and sharing of digital photographs. Since then, Google has
released the latest edition of the software with
Picasa2. The aim of the software was to make photo editing simple and
easy to use. Picasa has also been integrated with
Google's Blogger and Gmail
services. It
is free to download.
This add-on to Google's software Picasa gives
the user the ability to instant message pictures and to surf the web in a
shared form: two users instant messaging can surf the web together. It also
allows a user to directly add pictures from Picasa
to his/her blog on blogger. This is the first
instant messaging download offered by Google.
Talk
Main Article: Google Talk
On August 24, 2005, a beta version of Talk was released. It is an instant
messaging service, utilizing the Jabber protocol. Talk also includes a voice
over ip service.
Toolbar
Google Toolbar is a toolbar featuring a Google search bar, as well as
other Google tools.
As of July 2005, Google Toolbar is available for two browsers, four
operating systems and in ten languages.
This addition to Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later adds Google's
searching capabilities in a toolbar in the web browser. The latest version
includes pop-up ads blocking, automatic filling of forms, the ability to
show the Google PageRank value for the current
page being viewed, and spell checker, AutoLink
and the Word Translator. It has been criticized for being a security risk
because it updates itself without user intervention.
A separately downloadable add-on for the toolbar allowed participation in
Google Compute, a distributed computing
project to help scientific research. This add-on is currently not available.
Other browsers, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari, have
built-in search tools
that offer the same functionality. Recently, Google also launched a new
version of the toolbar, "Google Toolbar for Firefox", which functions
similarly to its Internet Explorer counterpart, except it has exclusive
Firefox-only features. There is also the well established Googlebar project,
which although unofficial and not developed by Google directly offers very
similar functionality to the official Google Toolbar.
Main article: Google Web
Accelerator
On May 3, 2005, Google launched a downloadable web accelerator known as
Google Web Accelerator. It can be
integrated into Mozilla Firefox (taking the form of two new toolbar items)
and Microsoft Internet Explorer (taking the form of a new toolbar), but it
is also usable in a limited capacity with any web browser simply by setting
the browser's proxy server to localhost:9100. It speeds up web browsing
through the use of this local proxy server, which sends requests to Google's
Web Accelerator servers to help
get a faster response. The data between the local proxy and the accelerator
servers is compressed to decrease transfer time. The Google
Web Accelerator also uses caching
and prefetching. Prefetching can be disabled.
However, there was recent controversy over the Accelerator as some users
found that their personal website cookies were being shared to other users.
This meant that some users found pages such as forum control panels of other
users containing personal information appearing and that is was possible to
spoof post as those other users. Secure websites were unaffected as the
Accelerator did not scan sites protected by https.
It is thought this was the reason that downloads of the Google Accelerator
software were disabled, however there were also technical issues with it
following links that could cancel or delete website data. The prefetching
option would potentially prefetch links such as "delete" or "log out",
causing data loss and access problems. Google's servers also quickly reached
their maximum capacity due to the widespread use of Accelerator: this is the
reason Google officially cited on the Accelerator website.
Google Guide made by MultiMedia | Free content and software
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