Web Cites: New search tools

* PubSub - www.pubsub.com

Short for "publish and subscribe," PubSub is a matching engine that tracks newly posted content and alerts users whenever a match to their query is produced. The site monitors Securities and Exchange Commission filings, press releases from major wire services, airport delay alerts, and more than 50,000 newsgroups, and plans to add more streams of data.

* MSN Search - http://beta.search.msn.com

Microsoft's answer to Google and Yahoo, the beta version of its new search engine answers fact-based questions and features a Search Near Me button that finds Web sites for given locations.

* Google Desktop - http://desktop.google.com

Google's desktop search application indexes your local data to provide Google-style searching of your e-mail, computer files, chats and Web pages you've viewed. It updates continually for most file types, which means that when you get a new e-mail in Outlook, you can search for it within seconds. The index is stored on your computer.

* Clusty - http://clusty.com

This new meta-search engine aims to simplify searching by breaking down results into related categories. It queries multiple search engines and uses a "clustering engine" to organize results into folders with similar items grouped together.

* Consumer WebWatch - http://www.consumerwebwatch.org

Consumer WebWatch, a project of Consumers Union, says that its aim is to "investigate, inform and improve the quality of information published on the World Wide Web." In addition to a list of sites that meet its guidelines, the watchdog's site includes e-commerce ethics guidelines, research, and links to organizations, agencies and professional groups related to consumer protection, privacy and other related Web issues.

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