For the past four months, I’ve been evaluating two desktop search programs: X1 and Copernic Desktop Search. I’ve given each one a fair test, and the contest is over. Copernic wins.
Both programs do a thoroughly acceptable job of very quickly locating the exact message, file, picture, or contact that I need. Both have toolbars that tuck neatly into the Windows XP taskbar so I can begin a search without having to open a special window. Both give me control over exactly what gets indexed and give me excellent controls to minimize the hit that indexing puts on my system performance. Each program has a few strengths and weaknesses: X1 integrates much more fully with Outlook 2003 than does Copernic. Copernic, on the other hand, indexes my browser’s bookmarks and cache (IE or Firefox), which X1 doesn’t do. But none of the differences in the respective feature sets are crucial.
So what tipped the scales? Two things:
- Copernic is free, X1 costs $75. That’s a lot of money, about two to three times what comparable utilities cost. Fortunately, I didn’t have to pay for the X1 license. I qualified for a free license thanks to a promotion that Jason Calacanis ran on his blog last October. (Both Google and MSN are offering free desktop search utilities as well, but neither one is good enough for my purposes yet.) If X1 wants to charge a premium price when the competition is free, it has to offer something to justify the cost.
- X1 is just too buggy. Three times in the four months I’ve been evaluating X1 version 5, it has completely lost track of the index to my files, or stopped indexing new messages for several days, or lost the ability to specify folders in my main Outlook message store. That’s annoying, to say the least. It’s fatal when the whole point of the program is to offer me instant access to information that I need, when I need it, usually when I’m working on a deadline trying to pull together a proposal or an article. On all three occasions, it took roughly an hour to delete the existing X1 index and build a new one. That’s just not acceptable.
The developers of X1 have acknowledged that these bugs exist. To their credit, I was able to go to the X1 Discussion Forum and find some candid discussions of the issue (here, here, here, and here, for instance). But until they get these issues licked, I can’t recommend the program. Especially not when a free, fast, and extremely capable alternative exists in Copernic Desktop Search.
Ed Bott 
Told ya. 😉
Yes, Copernic rules at the moment but X1 gains on few points.
The latest x1 5.1 beta supports lotus notes.
X1 can index almost all the file types 250+
X1 can index network drives.
If you are not looking for the above features, you can go for Copernic.
Just my 0.02 cents.
Amit
Desktop Search Blog
Hi,
Copernic can index network drive.
I’m not concerned as much about current features as price, although I appreciate others doing the grunt work of evaluating these search apps. Whatever problems X1 has, it will inevitably get better, however, I can’t justify the high cost. On my site, I’ve noticed that more than half of all shareware updated in the past 15 months has increased in price by an average 40% jump. And for one-trick utility software, that’s inexcusable and cannot garner recommendations to friends and colleagues.
I’ve been researching desktop search tools and can not find the answer to a question. What is the difference between supporting Outlook and Exchange? If it supports Outlook shouldn’t it be able to support exchange as well? Can someone please help.
Exchange mailboxes are stored on a server and synchronized with the Exchange client, which is Outlook. To work with Exchange, a utility generally has to run on the server.
If you use Outlook for Internet standard email, your messages are stored locally, and any utility runs locally and interacts exclusively with the client.
Does that help explain?
Yes that helps, Thanks Ed
One more question. How about when you have personal folders set up in outlook. where it downloads messages from the server?
Outlook has two file formats for Personal Folders. The PST format is for Personal Folders, which are used when you use Outlook with Internet standard email accounts (POP and SMTP). The OST format is used to maintain local copies of messages that have been synchronized with an Exchange Server, so that you can read them when you’re offline.
I strongly suspect (but don’t know for sure) that any locally installed utility will index an OST file just as it would a PST file. But it won’t do anything for the messages that remain on the server.
I love Copernic. Was working great till I started using Offline folders in outlook (OST). Unlike PSTs it will not recognize my OST file. Is this a bug?
I love copernic and it worked fine with LAN drives and outlook express. However it hangs with Outlook 2003 when you open the email setup box in “options”. It is obviously getting into problems with the .OST files I have (outlook is set up to move all my emails to a local .OST file).
Does anyone know why this is?
I am using Copernic with great pleasure for about a year and my Copernic search database already is about 500MB. Now I see that he is not indexing OUtlook anymore. In the options > email I see Outlook and OUtlook Express, but none of them marked. I also cannot mark Outlook, WHY NOT? I already uninstalled en reinstalled, restarted laptop etc, but no solution. Please help, djepie@gmail.com
X1 can index bookmarks and cache, you just have to include the appropriate folders in “Advanced Options”
I was wondering how Copernice does its Outlook integration? Do they read a PST file on disk or do they somehow have a plugin or automation method for Outlook?
I originally had issues with indexing in “Yahoo Desktop Search”, after reporting it they seemed to fix it as I never had issues in newer versrons. Now its been replaced with X1 (free version I assume) and the same issues are there:
1. Too agressive with index, in fact I’m not even sure the indexing related options work.
2. If it decides to stop/pause indexing for a while it can and frequently does do this IN THE MIDDLE OF SCANNING A FILE!!!!!
I too will be going back to Copernic…