Yes, it takes a few minutes of reading the instructions, and a few more minutes of experimenting to get the hang of it. And, yes, it gets easier the more you use it - both because you learn it's fine points, and it learns yours (like what abreviations you use for an app or file)

But before long it's all second nature. And this is coming from a cranky old guy who's far from a computer whiz.

But I think the review below uses an unfair example. Yes Safari (or something else that lives in your dock) can probably be accessed as quickly that way. But what about the vast majority of apps and documents and photos and adresses, etc. that don't live in the dock?

I did some experimenting for fun. I went after some apps and documents I use occasionally, but not everyday.

From a dead standstill, using the mouse/finder method took an average of 15 seconds. Using quicksilver took an average of 4 seconds.

11 seconds may not sound like much, but lets say you use it 10 times a day, five days a week. That's saving about 9+ minutes a week. Or just about 8 hours over a year. To me, that's time worth saving.

Plus I find Quicksilver a lot more fun to use than the finder (subjective, to be sure).

I also compared it with Butler (which I found less intuitive and more annoying) and Launch Bar (more limited and not free). Both are excellent in their own ways, but this was the one I stayed with.

For those who want a compromise - something simpler than Quicksilver to learn and use, but still free and fast at opening apps and documents, ABC Launch is quite good. A lot fewer bells, whisteles and options, but faster to become second nature.

But for me, I like the fun of the constant development and additions, and the fact that I'm always finding new ways to make Quicksilver work even better for me.