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Google Inc. is taking its desktop search application out of beta on Monday with a release that supports more file formats and opens access to third-party developers.

Google Desktop Search 1.0 moves beyond the beta version’s Microsoft focus by introducing support for applications from the Mozilla Foundation and America Online Inc.’s Netscape Communications.

While the beta only indexed Microsoft Outlook e-mail and Internet Explorer Web browsing history, the latest release also can search e-mail from the Mozilla Thunderbird and Netscape clients and browsing history from the Firefox and Netscape browsers, Google announced.

To make more desktop data searchable, the latest release adds indexing support for the full text of PDFs to existing support for Microsoft Office formats. It also indexes the metadata of video, images and audio, such as titles or artist information.

“With regard to users, we have tens of thousands of applications and file types they want to search,” said Nikhil Bhatla, a Google product manager. “We’ve addressed the top requests and most popular applications, and the best way to address [this] is by making desktop search available for developers to write plug-ins.”

Google Desktop Search went into beta in October. Since then, major search rivals Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.’s MSN and Ask Jeeves Inc. have entered the desktop search race. Startups such as Blinkx Inc. and vendors like Copernic Technologies Inc., X1 Technologies Inc. and ISYS Search Software also are vying for desktop searchers.

Unlike its competitors, Google merges desktop and Web search results together, using its well-known Web-browser interface to display results. It also indexes browser history and AOL Instant Messenger chat sessions along with files and e-mails.

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News Source: eWeek

Yahoo Inc. is more than doubling its limits on free e-mail storage in its latest move to combat two of its biggest rivals, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

E-mail accountholders will get up to 250 megabytes of free storage effective Monday, up from 100 megabytes previously offered by Sunnyvale-based Yahoo. The change follows Microsoft’s recent decision to boost the free storage on its Hotmail service to 250 megabytes per account.

Both Yahoo and Hotmail have dramatically increased their storage limits since Google rolled out its free e-mail service offering in April. The Google service, called Gmail, offers each accountholder up to 1,000 megabytes of e-mail storage.

Yahoo, which runs the world’s most popular Web site, is hoping the improvements will retain its current e-mail users and perhaps lure converts from other services.

Unlike Yahoo’s e-mail service and Hotmail, Gmail remains in a test mode and is available only through invitations from Google or existing accountholders.

“Gmail is an interesting competitor,” said Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo’s vice president of communications products. “It really has raised the game for everyone and that’s good for consumers.”

Besides increasing storage limits, Yahoo says it has upgraded the tools for verifying the identities of e-mailers and improved the features used to search e-mail content.

Yahoo promotes itself as the largest provider of free e-mail, with tens of millions of users. The company declined to offer precise numbers.

News source: ABCNews