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Yahoo! is taking a different approach to desktop search from its main rivals. Unlike the Google desktop search, which integrates with the Google results page,or the MSN desk bar the Yahoo! desktop search is a self contained application.

Typing a search query will bring up all the files that contain the term on the left

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and a preview of the file by default on the right - which can be a bit slow for really big files.

As with Google and MSN's search, the tool can index a wide range of popular file formats. Yahoo! says the tool can index over 200 different types of text, word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation applications from the common to the obscure. However, unlike the MSN search bar, it doesn't index Outlook appointments.

However, the tool won't automatically index new or edited files. Instead you have to wait for a scheduled index to happen. Somewhat surprisingly for a tool from a search engine, it can't sort the results by relevance or name but purely by date.

The tool, for Windows XP and 2000 with SP3, has been developed in conjunction with X1 Technologies, whose founder Bill Gross helped to establish Overture - now a Yahoo! subsidiary - the web's biggest search engine marketing company.