When Web Ferret first came out a few years ago and I saw it, I was kind of turned off by the concept of having a utility to search the web when there were already many search engines available. Well I installed the utility just because I am curious and even if I think I may not like something, I will try it so I can tell others or use it in my work or just to find out what something is.

I was immediately turned off by the advertisements. I am not a big fan of being bombarded with advertisements when I am trying to to something perhaps somewhat serious (like research for work.) However, the fact that they were there was soon overshadowed by the results I was obtaining from my first test search. I was quite surprised at how quickly results were presented on the screen. Not only were the results fast, they were continuing to come in rapidly until I reached the 500 mark (the default limit.) This prompted me to look a little closer at the program.

I discovered a lot of neat little things about the Web Ferret in this look and was impressed enough that I purchased the full version of the utility. On closer look, I found that you can control, out of the available search engines (the list is shorter in the free version - in the full version there are many more search engines to choose from) which ones to pull results from and not only that, but you can limit your results to a specific number in total or a specific number from each search engine.

Another advantage to having a separate utility for searching (remember I was not a fan of this to begin with - Web Ferret changed all that) is that while the results are displayed on a page - it is not your browsers. The advantage to this is you don't have to flip pages back and forth always waiting for a page to load. You can just alt+tab screens and double click right in the Ferret window and it will direct your browser to the right page.

Although I recommend the free version very highly - you simply cannot go wrong - I would also recommend upgrading to the full version. You get more search engines (30 in the current release) but you also can elect to turn the advertisements off. And you know what? After using the free version for a while I stopped noticing the advertisements. The results obtained from my searches were displayed so quickly, there was always something else to get my attention.

In my humble opinion, you cannot go wrong with either version of Web Ferret. Although the company does produce other 'ferrets,' Web Ferret is the one that stands out. You want fast search results? Get Web Ferret!



Recommended: Yes