Search Bots

JOC Web Finder Cuts to the Chase

By Brian Proffitt

Sometimes it's good to know that you can always find simple tools to help provide the things you need.

Finding information on the Web has always been one of those challenges akin to climbing Mt. Everest--you do it because it's there. These days, a lot of people have climbed Everest, which sort of lowers the challenge a bit. The same effect holds true for Web searching: with so many tools who have tread the same path, what more can a programmer do?

Simple, just make use of all the existing tools and put them together into a neat little package. Such is the rationale of the JOC Web Finder.

The JOC stands for Jose Olive Civit, the developer of this free adware Windows application that taps into the search capabilities of up to nine major search engines to deliver answers very quickly.

The speed of this application is impressive, no doubt a result of its small size and clean interface. Search terms are entered in the ubiquitous search field, and enhanced with Boolean commands controlled by radio buttons right on the main window. I especially liked this feature, since radio buttons are faster to manipulate than drop-down lists.

Also of note in this application is the ability to save searches for future use and the ability to export the results to HTML or text format.

Results are displayed as the URL and title of the found page--no excerpts are created. All results can immediately be displayed on your system's default browser.

While JOC Web Finder is not as robust as Copernic, its freeware status should make it an appealing application for those users on a budget.