WebSleuth: Supersonic Web Searching
Search tool is speedy and innovative, but friendly neighborhood search engines are still your best bet.
By Glenn McDonald, PCWorld Jul 30, 1997 12:00 am
Prompt Software's $49.95 WebSleuth is the latest entry in the crowded market of search utility software that promises to make scouring the Web a clean and efficient process.
The cruel truth, however, is that there is no single best way to find exactly what you want online--and anyone who says so probably has some nice oceanfront property in Provo to sell you, as well.
With that in mind, WebSleuth has some very innovative technology behind it that makes it stand out from the crowd. Like Quarterdeck's WebCompass and ForeFront's WebSeeker (both of which also cost $49.95), WebSleuth runs your search through multiple online search engines, weeds out the dead links, and intelligently sorts results.
WebSleuth is unique in that it not only gathers and sorts results, it actually goes to the Web pages and runs a lightning-fast text search on the content and links therein. From there it generates a complete navigable index of all the important words and phrases on all Web sites returned. WebSleuth can index an entire single site this way, if you tell it to keep drilling down through every embedded link.
Because it only scouts text, it can do this indexing remarkably fast. The words and phrases are sorted alphabetically and fully cross-referenced. It's an innovative approach, and a potentially powerful tool for finding those digital needles in the vast haystack that is the Internet. The words and phrases are also hotlinked--one click launches WebSleuth's embedded browser and takes you to the site in a separate preview window.
That's where things get rough-unlike other search utilities, WebSleuth doesn't let you work within your preferred browser. Instead, WebSleuth piggybacks on your default browser to create the preview window with a completely differentand inferior-browser interface. WebSleuth is designed to work with Internet Explorer, but it will support any Windows 95-compliant browser with some tweaking.
The preview window is a poor replacement. Familiar elements like your toolbar and status bar are gone completely, and your back, forward, and home buttons can be accessed only through a tiny pull-down menu. Even simple tasks like copying and pasting require you to discover new right-click commands. The functionality is all there, just much harder to get to.
WebSleuth%squots text indexing also claims to generate a summary abstract of a given page based on a %dquotproprietary syntax analysis engine.%dquot You can then view that abstract without even dealing with the browser at all.
Sounds good, huh? Well, in my testing I discovered that "proprietary syntax analysis" translates roughly to %dquotraw text copied from the page.%dquot Which can be useful in some instances, but generally you%squotre getting a jumble of random text lifted from the top page. In push/pull circles, this process is also called smart agent technology, and if Santa grants me just one wish this year, I hope it%squots that companies stop overhyping this as a viable method for summarizing Web page content.
Overall, WebSleuth is very well designed. It features excellent online help and a universe of options for customizing both how it searches and how it presents results. You can determine which search engines to use (up to 13), how many results it grabs from each engine, how much of any given result page it text-scans, and how many pages overall it brings back to you. Here%squots a tip--set all of these low. WebSleuth is an eager little beastie and if it had its way, it would index the whole Internet.
WebSleuth%squots speedy text-based indexing is definitely a winner, but ultimately, the usefulness of this and other search utilities can be determined by a simple question: Do they get you what you want any quicker than a typical search engine?
For my money, no. Having spent some time with most of these products, I%squotm convinced that, for the vast majority of search tasks, a decent search engine (I like Excite and InfoSeek) and a little intuition is cheaper and often faster than any supplemental search tools.
A fully functional trialware version of WebSleuth is available for free download at Prompt Software%squots Web site.
- source
- poor mangled emglish version of the above: www.pcworldtech.com/article-1162.html
WebSleuth 1.6
May 18, 1998 12:00 am
WebSleuth 1.6
With a built-in browser viewer that previews pages, an intelligent sorting method, and a choice of beginner and expert interfaces, WebSleuth is a great metasearcher. Too bad it's so costly. Its wizard helps untutored users, and its results window homes in on the information you want--in part by showing alphabetical lists of words and phrases you can click to preview a result. Like our Best Buy, Inforian Quest 98, WebSleuth shows results as they arrive, so you can visit potentially helpful sites before all the results appear. But the program's extra features don't justify its high price.
$40; www.promptsoftware.com ; free limited demo
An entirely new kind of Internet Search Tool. It gathers, organizes, analysis, and presents On-line information from multiple search engines simultaneously (currently more than 35). With Web Sleuth, you can easily, rapidly, and accurately sift through mountains of information. Web Sleuthautomatically builds a cross-referenced index of words and phrases, a table of contents, and a text summary of each URL link related to your query. Its like building an encyclopedia from your search query and using the index to pinpoint exactly what you are looking for. Web Sleuth also lets you "preview" web pages and web sites without spending "wasted" time downloading unwanted information. With Web Sleuths variety of information viewing options and refining features, its easier and faster to find exactly whatyou want.
Web Sleuth 2.0 Information:
Screenshot: Screenshot
Version: 2.0
Release: 5 Jul 1998
Update: 4 Dec 2003
License: Shareware
File Size: 3 MB
File Name: ws2000.exe
Category: Browers and others
Environment: Windows
Vendor: