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Yahoo Releases Desktop Search Tool

Search engine giant Yahoo released its beta of its desktop search tool yesterday, ramping up the battle to extend its search engine footprint onto the desktop. The new tool goes head to head with the desktop search tool from Google, and is available as a free download from its web site. The Yahoo desktop search tool indexes information and content that users have on their desktop hard drives, allowing searching of emails, pictures, and over 200 other file types on Windows based machines. Yahoo has tapped Pasadena-based startup X1 for the Windows-based search application, in a deal that the companies had previously announced in December. Yahoo said that the beta release is the first of many planned product releases of the tool, which currently looks and performs essentially identically to the X1 desktop search tool. The new Yahoo desktop search has the same functionality as the X1 tool, with modified icons and a slightly changed interface and specialized search panes for pictures and music. Yahoo touted the tool's ability to preview video and audio files without a separate player, a preview pane for files and emails, and safety features which prevent the system's web browser cache from being searched--all standard features of the X1 tool. The Yahoo tool also includes a link to information about X1's WorkGroup Edition search tool.