GDS 3.0 Beta released

Google has released version 3.0 of Google Desktop Search which includes a couple new features and some updates.  Some of the notable new features include sidebar panels which have information that can be shared with other users, password protection and the ability to search across multiple computers.

Two features I find quite useful are the password protection and the ability to search other computers.  People can grow nervous when installing desktop search on their computers because they are worried about what it might find -- and show to other people.  The ability to lock search down solves this problem by allowing only people with the correct windows password to perform a query.

Searching across multiple computers is a great feature for me -- I can search my home computer from work and vice versa without using terminal services. With this new feature, Google Desktop can help users get around firewall restrictions that might otherwise prevent remotely accessing computers to search for information.