Google Desktop is a free tool available for download from the Google web site.

This powerful instrument is intended as a cross-platform solution that allows you to make searches on your local PC the same way as you search the WEB with Google.

But what is good in general cannot be absolutely perfect for every particular case.

Halftone Search from Trietech is a free Google Desktop add-on that offers some advanced Google Desktop functionality to MS Windows users. Google Desktop uses an HTML interface.

It's fine for the net, but on your local desktop you would certainly prefer an application that uses native Windows controls.

Halftone Search solves this problem by offering you an alternative Google Toolbar UI.

With the Halftone Search, you can highlight search terms in the results, customize fonts, etc.

The program can extract compressed files on-the-fly and show their contents.

It also provides several ways to make searches.

You can choose from a pop-up menu in your Windows tray, a form or a dockable toolbar in the main program window. In addition to the interface enhancements, Halftone Search also extends the Google Desktop search engine itself.

As you may know, Google Desktop uses "drivers" to collect searchable data from your local files. "Drivers" are plugins that allow it to understand specific file formats. Halftone Search installs drivers for compressed file archives (rar, zip, arj, tar, gz, bz2, etc.), chm files, MS Help v.2 files (just imagine a searchable index of all the help files on your disks), plain-text files with unicode support, web archives (mht) plus all the drivers you may have installed by MSN Desktop Search.

With Halftone Search you can also manage all the installed drivers. With all of the above in mind, we are quickly driven to the conclusion that Halftone Search is a must-have add-on for every Google Desktop user with a Windows powered PC.