Copernic Agent Basic 6.1

Copernic Agent comes in a number of versions, but it’s the Basic that’s free. Its commercial heritage shines through in areas like the installation process, which lets you install a default version or configure a wide range of options, such as whether or not you want the software to integrate with Internet Explorer. Choosing this option will replace the search panel with a Copernic version, add a search function to the right-click menu, and add specific search and results bars. You can also add a non-US based search tool should you want to use a selection of UK-specific search engines.

In our view, the biggest problem is that this free version doesn’t include Google in its searches. Yahoo, All the Web, AltaVista, MSN and the Open Directory Project are all included and between them, these giants create a pretty sturdy index. AOL and Yahoo both use Google’s search technology mixed up with a bit of their own, so Google isn’t entirely out of the window, but considering the search giant is the most popular of the lot, the omission of its name alone leaves a gaping hole. The UK search reduces the number of search engines you can use, but it does search across UK versions of big sites like Yahoo and AltaVista, as well as UK specific search places like the BBC.

Copernic is simple and produces friendly, useful results. However, it’s not as friendly as newcomer FirstStop WebSearch and the lack of weighting towards Google’s excellent facility is cause for concern.