Google Inc., yesterday announced that it is launching Google Desktop 3 Beta, the latest version of its flagship desktop application.
 
The new features in Google Desktop 3 make finding and sharing information even easier for our users, says the company. With this version, company has added new ways for users to customize the Sidebar, share information with friends, and search for content no matter where it resides. Google Desktop is a free downloadable application and runs on Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP3+. The new version is currently available in English but will be offered in 15 international languages by the end of the quarter.

With Desktop 3, users can now customize and view any combination of personalized information (photos, weather, news, maps, stock quotes, and more) - anywhere on their desktop that's relevant to them, search the text of their documents and viewed web pages across all their computers andeasily share content from their Sidebar with a friend, including news, websites, games and more.

Other new features include: advanced search forms for helping users build advanced queries, spelling suggestions for users' queries, the ability to disable indexing, the addition of zip file indexing, and an improved preferences page.

On February 8, 2006, Google also announced the launch of Gmail Chat, the first integration of email and instant messaging in the browser that offers users a seamless communications experience. Gmail Chat enables Gmail users to quickly and easily reach their contacts from directly within their existing Gmail account.