San Francisco - Google Inc's free software that can help people find information stored on computer hard drives, emerged from test mode on Monday with an upgraded product. The improvements in Google Desktop extend the software's reach beyond material searched by the "beta", version that has been out since October as a free download.

It also said that the opening up of the product for outside developers is also a direct attack on Microsoft, who is looking to increase its presence in both online and offline search technology.

The idea of having a floating or fixed search window on your screen all of the time suggests that Google hopes to win over the Windows audience

Desktop search is essential for the future when you're trying to find that cute photograph of the kids on the beach from ten years ago, or when you digs out the old Rolling Stones tune that you're sure you downloaded years ago.

The updated version of Google's Search tool now lets you search full text of PDFs and metadata of multimedia files, in addition to other regular desktop files. Up to now, the search tool could only index the names of PDF and multimedia files, such as image, music, and video files.

Google has taken the product out of beta because it now has all the file types and features that were high on the list of user requests, according to the company.

By removing the beta tag, Google is also hoping more users will feel encouraged to download and install the product. Google, like Microsoft, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo and America Online, is hoping its desktop search tool will help it to extend its customer loyalty. The next move will be to make money from the technology.

Other improvements in the Google desktop tool include support for Firefox Web browser and Thunderbird e-mail application, and for America Online's Netscape browser and e-mail application.

Up to now it only supported Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and Outlook and Outlook Express  e-mail applications. It will also be available for the first time in Chinese and Korean, which means that its interface, support and documentation have been translated to those languages.

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