... I'm not sure I've ever found any GUI system search reliable enough that I've used it on-purpose (though accidentally, sometimes) on Windows, Linux, or Mac. I always just use "find" and "grep" (and ripgrep when I remember that exists and realize I just grepped a lot and will be waiting for like an hour if I don't re-run the command with rg instead). Or nothing on Windows, which is fine because I haven't used Windows for anything but launching video games in about two decades.
I've only started using gui search since using fedora. the tracker search in the activities view is fast and finds files in the home folder by name pretty well. The only shame is that the pdf-content search doesn't work in the main search interface but only when searching in the file manager.
Windows 11 LTSC one is quite good because it's so damn stupid. You can indeed hit start then just type what you want. Only does files though, by name, which is fine.
Windows 11 is beyond pale. It’s infuriatingly bad. But it could be a benefit if you do a bit of manual organizing and ignore most of its dumb features. Only use it for work, I will never use it at home.
Spotlight was bad back in the day, so I installed Alfred and started using that. Then Spotlight suddenly improved a lot, enough that it was usable for me, and I deleted Alfred. Then about five years ago something happened internally at Apple to the Spotlight team and it just got worse and worse and more difficult to use, making me regret deleting Alfred.
I wish Apple would just fix Spotlight. They don't seem to think it's worth fixing.
That is a good question. I like my dock uncluttered. I have it placed vertically on the left side, with only the apps I use every single day: Alacritty, Brave, Cursor, and Zoom. With Finder and Launchpad included, that's only six docked apps. Everything else I use Spotlight to open, so I feel the pain when the usability gets degraded or buggy.
