GoogleKnot

Google Desktop is a sidebar application which brings together many Google functionalities including Email, News and Talk. The new version allows you place the panels wherever you would like on your desktop and show and hide them by pressing shift twice. This is a very nice feature for maximizing screen realestate and reminds me of the dashboard widgets on Mac.

But the big news is the ability to share files with other Desktop/Talk Users which is a feature that Talk had been lacking and one that I felt could be improved in services such as AOL instant Messenger. In Addition you will now be able to search files across multiple computers. To take advantage of this feature you have to install Desktop on all the computers and then choose which files you would like to share. The files are then copied to all the computers. There is concern about this feature because during the copy process the files are temporarily stored on Google's servers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is not recommending this feature because the storage of the files on Google's servers makes users much more vulnerable to subpoenas. Only a subpoena is required for information stored on service provider servers where as a warrant. The EFF is asking Google to join it in asking the US Congress to strengthen the privacy rights for data stored on service provider servers but Google has yet to respond