Putting aside the search capabilities of Google Desktop, just for the widgets alone, which one do you prefer? Google Desktop or Yahoo Widget Engine? Which one provides more functionality, has better privacy and lags your computer less?
Thanks in advance!
I don’t think they are necessarily opposed to each other. Google seems to be more centered around search functions, while Yahoo is much more general. As to functions, there is no question Yahoo Widgets have more functionality, although I have just been poking around with Google desktop for a little bit. Neither should take up any significant amount of processor, but both will eat up RAM. It looks like they use up comparable amounts of RAM, so neither seems to have the edge in lag time.
As to privacy, I think you are mistaken about what Yahoo Widgets do. As far as I know they don’t collect any sort of privacy data. They are simply small little programs that run on your desktop. Google Desktop, on the other hand, indexes your computer to provide improved searching capabilities. They claim not to collect any personal data on you but it seems they log preferences and such by IP address. That means, theoretically at least, they can track you and perhaps gather personal data. I don’t know what they can do with the technology in Google Desktop, but there is the potential for abuse there. However, Google has no reason to care about whats on your computer, and most likely won’t gather any data.
I was a little hesitant to put Yahoo Widgets on my computer, one because I was a little worried it would just be another thing like Bobo (Bozo? What was that purple monkey thing called?) and two because I thought it would put a dent in my laptop’s somewhat limited resources. However, I went through the installation carefully, making sure that it didn’t install any extraneous stuff (Yahoo loves to do that if you’re not paying attention) and it hasn’t hurt any of my resources at all. And it’s extremely handy - I push F8 and I can see the weather, check out my system resources if the computer seems to be running slowly, and (most frequently) type an equation into Google Calculator. Absolutely love it - I think I have **Bambi Hassenpfeffer **to thank for telling me about it.
Bonzo?