Google's tool may increase user loyalty, said Greg Sterling, an analyst with market researcher Kelsey Group Inc. in San Francisco.

Built on Google's desktop search technology the software include major new features, such as a Sidebar that provides desktop access to a variety of personalized information including email, news, weather, photos, stocks and RSS and Atom news feeds. Sidebar appears as a small vertical window on the side of a user's screen that includes a series of "live" content panels reports Geekzone

This new Sidebar is personalized automatically based on the user's interests as expressed by the websites they visit, requiring little to no manual configuration.

Additional features include a scratch pad to type and save notes and a quick view of recently or frequently visited websites.

Google Desktop 2 is available in English, with additional language support to follow shortly. Currently available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above, Desktop 2 requires 500MB of disk space, a minimum of 256MB of RAM, and a 400MHz (or faster) Pentium processor is recommended.

The updated Google desktop-search software is available today for free at http://desktop.google.com .