Wox is a free and open-source search tool and application launcher for Windows PC. It is a lightweight tool that can launch applications, search files and folders and other content on the internet. It is very easy to set up and operate and features a minimal search box type design that displays results as you type in your keywords.
Wox Launcher for Windows
Wox offers great customization. There are themes to match the desktop background. There are plugins that can be installed for better functionality. A lot of useful plugins are pre-installed but you can even create your own plugins as it supports plugins written by CSharp, Python, NodeJS, Golang and so on.
The search results are really very responsive and fast. With the Calculator plugin installed and activated, you can carry out calculations right away in the search box, and with the Shell plugin in place you can give shell commands right from the Wox search box and even replace ‘Win + R’.
Another plugin I found useful was the Colors plugin that shows the preview of the color as soon as you type in the hex code. The plugins make Wox a really good tool.
There are a lot of additional plugins available on the tool’s website, which are developed by the members of the community. Even you can create and share plugins with anyone.
Some of the plugins I loved from the website are Random Password Generator, Google Translate and Process Killer.
You can search content on various search engines using Wox. For example, if you want to carry out a Google search you simply need to type “g(space)query” – and for YouTube, you need to type “youtube(space)query” and your web browser will open with the required results. The Web Search plugin supports most of the websites like Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, Yahoo and so on. You can even manually add websites to the plugin.
Wox makes up a pretty great tool with amazing features. It is easy to access, fast and customizable to a great extent. It is open-source, and the source code is available on GitHub.
You can add Wox to startup and also choose a hotkey for a more immersive experience. The default hotkey to access Wox on any screen is ‘Alt + Space’. You can even add custom Hotkeys for different search queries.
Click here to download Wox. The tool makes performing basic tasks a breeze.
