Reading about the great productivity wonders that can be achieved through Mac’s Quicksilver app makes many Windows users jealous, myself included.
Scott Hanselman does the good thing and rounds up ten Windows alternatives that can get similar jobs done. Launching programs from a few keyboard shortcuts is fantastic fun, but completely replicating Quicksilver on a Windows machine is another thing.
- Slickrun
- SmartStartMenu
- slimKEYS
- Colibri – The closest thing so far, IMHO, to Quicksilver on Windows, although this little gem has a slow startup time, it runs fast! It’s being actively developed and promises integration with a dozen third party programs.
- Launchy
- AppRocket
- ActiveWords
- Dave’s Quick Search Bar
- Google Desktop
- Find and Run Robot
We’ll be running some more detailed implication of these programs here at Lifehack in the future. Which do you guys recommend?
Replacing Start Run – The Quest Continues – [Hanselman] Via [LifeClever]
Lunchy has the most potential, especially since it started supporting plugins as of the latest version. I use it in combination with google desktop for file searching.
I live and die by SlickRun, an absolutely fabulous and light weight launcher. I have the keyboard set to win key + Q.
You may want to check out Fingertips, too.
http://www.getfingertips.com
This is nice but anything like this for Linux?? Especially Ubuntu.
Find+Run Robot version 2 (still free), has been packed with tons of new stuff and has been in solid development for months.
If you’d like to try a preview download of it before it goes public, just email me at mouser@donationcoder.com — i’m the author :)
I’m very happy to hear about feature requests as well, so don’t be shy.
Launchy all the way. By far the best of the list.
Unfortunately Quicksilver is still king though by a long shot.
Are any of these portable, i.e., USB drive?
David: I’m the author of slimKEYS. I did look at this avenue, as I was very interested in the PortableApps project. Would you expect slimKEYS/the launcher app to scan all the target computer’s files, or just files on the USB key?
slimKEYS does work from a USB key, but it requires .NET 2.0 on the host machine.
David, I understand Colibri has a ‘portable mode’ that will run on a USB stick.
I miss PhraseExpress on the list which actually puts everything together in the slickest form and it is FREE:
* Autotext/AutoCorrection
* Launch programs or open documents triggered by text shortcuts
* Organizes text snippets
* Networking capabilities with Client/Server architecture
And it has by far the smalles footprint.
Simon
Thanks Simon!
For Linux users I’ll add these:
Katapult – http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=33985
Gnome Launch Box – http://developer.imendio.com/projects/gnome-launch-box
Deskbar – http://raphael.slinckx.net/deskbar/
I’d suggest you look at Direct Access. It uses abbreviations to expand text and launch applications. You can use it to search the web (Google, Wikipedia, dictionary, imdb…)
The new version supports Windows Vista and has macros and instant search.
Check it out at http://www.nagarsoft.com
The link to the Google Desktop is the same as Dave’s Quick Search Bar.
Love the site, by the way.
You’re not listing Keybreeze?! This is the closest application I’ve found to Quicksilver. It has almost as many features and it’s light-weight.
[...] been trying out similar apps and have had issues with most that we covered in Alternatives to Quicksilver post. Keybreeze, however, appears to handle a lot of queries, all in a very small package. [...]
This is a pretty good one too. Free trial and then it costs $20.
One feature that I really like is the ease with which one can switch to open windows (*including* individual tabs within Firefox)… something that most of the other launchers I’ve tried do not easily let one do.
Whoops. Forgot the link. The product is called Enso, and it can be downloaded here:
http://humanized.com/
[...] We’ll be running some more detailed implication of these programs here at Lifehack in the future. Which do you guys recommend? Source: 10 Windows Alternatives to Quicksilver – lifehack.org [...]
[...] the Windows apps I listed weren’t enough, you can find a larger list on lifehack.org : besides Colibri or Launchy, the list includes AppRocket , ActiveWords , Dave’s Quick Search [...]
The 11th alternative: skylight
[...] that makes it very easy to search and open programs. I found a few ones that are similar at lifehacker. If finally settled on a program called KeyBreeze. So far I love it. It allows [...]
[...] did my homework: I’ve surveyed most of the popular Windows application launchers, including my all-time favorite one, ENSO. It turns out that the application launcher I’m [...]
[...] and partake from the brilliance that is this program. A quick google search reveals a popular blog post on the subject in which the author lists 10 quicksilver-like programs that are available for [...]
In response to the Linux question:
gnome-do is excellent (though not quite quicksilver).
google desktop search is available for linux.
Thank you so much! Colibri is awesome. Finally I found a Quicksilver alternative on my PC.
Try http://uzoft.com/vDesk.aspx
Heard good things about Radian – http://radian-app.com