Google quietly shipped a small Windows app that, in one practical move, exposes how rough Microsoft’s built‑in search and launcher experience still is — and why third‑party solutions continue to outshine first‑party features on modern Windows desktops.
Background / Overview
In mid‑September...
Google has quietly pushed a Spotlight‑style search experience onto the Windows desktop: an experimental, keyboard‑first Google Search app that summons a floating search bar with Alt + Space and can return results from local files, installed apps, Google Drive, and the web — and it bundles Google...
ai mode
alt space
alt space launcher
drive integration
enterprise
google drive
googlewindowsapp
keyboard shortcut
lens integration
local search
multimodal search
privacy concerns
productivity
search labs
spotlight style search
telemetry
web search
windows 10
windows 11
windows desktop
Google's new Windows experiment drops a summonable Google search bar onto the desktop — press Alt + Space, highlight anything on screen with Google Lens, and get web, Drive and local-file results without opening a browser.
Background
For more than two decades Google Search has been primarily a...