I have been a loyal iGoogle user for many years and was truly bummed to hear the app is being killed effective November 1st. Damn you Google! You are ruining my productivity. The Google gods had giveth and now they taketh away.
For those of you who don’t know about iGoogle, it’s a personalized home page which, for me, summarized the weather, stocks, and the news all in one glance! See a view of my iGoogle here. That was my home page. Does it get any better than that? You were able to personalize it with whatever gadgets you fancied. And they had hundreds of different artsy backgrounds to choose from.
But like I said, it’s time to move on. iGoogle is going away and I needed to find a replacement quick. I tried Bing, Yahoo, MSN. Ugh, they were all deficient compared to iGoogle. Anyone use those sites as their home page? Would love to hear feedback.
After much research, I’m happy to report that I’ve found your replacement for the iGoogle homepage.
It’s igHome which sought to mimic the same look and feel of iGoogle. And I’m in love because they’re so damn similar. Productivity, nice to meet you again! The one thing I dislike is that the search function within the home page is not truly Google search. So if I want a really powerful search, I have to open up another window for Google.com. That sucks, but otherwise I’m pretty happy. Take a look.
Never used this, but I know that I am so not a fan of Bing or Yahoo for search engines, so I can imagine that this may be similar to that and know how frustrating that this could be for the home page, too. Glad you found something similar though, Catherine 🙂
yes, google is my favorite search engine. i hope it never goes away!
So nice to find a replacement from an old favorite. First, Google Reader. Now iGoogle! WTH!?
i know, tamara. i often wonder why couldn’t they just keep google reader and iGoogle around. how hard are they to maintain?! i’m not looking for new features or product enhancements. just what i’ve been used to all along.
I don’t understand it: first google reader and now iGoogle? Why do they kill products that have such a loyal following? Are they coming up with a replacement? If so, shouldn’t they have it in place before the old product goes away? It’s like they tease us. “Don’t get too comfortable with this because we can, and WILL, yank it out from under you at will.”
Seriously!
yes i have been grappling with that same problem of ending products that are useful and seem to have a lot of followers!
Ugh, what the hell, Google?! I’m still upset they forced me to switch over to BlogLovin’ after getting rid of Google Reader.
Anyway, I’m going to have to look into this. I haven’t personalized my homepage, but would love to (at least have some sort of daily reminders of tasks, a weather bar, news, etc.
Thanks for sharing this; will definitely look into it 🙂
it drives me batty! i am not sure how much it would have taken to simply maintain google reader and iGoogle. seems like there was a lot of value in these products. i am frazzled as to why they are going away!
I never used iGoogle but I just looked at igHome – looks great! I need to set up a home page, and if you recommend it, that’s where I’m going.
ahh yes, dana, you will like it. at least i do. nice snapshot of good newsfeeds (wall street journal, nytimes, reuters…oh and you can’t forget people.com for the latest celebrity gossip!). i also have the weather, my stock portfolio, wikipedia, google maps, and facebook.
I’ve never used iGoogle so I was sad to learn of its awesomeness that would be denied to me forever…. but Yay for igHome. I’m going to check it out! I could use some extra productivity!! –Lisa
just a comment for your wishes. under the wheel in top right corner you can go to preferences and change your search engine in the main bar. it is now like igoogle
I LOVE YOU! seriously, you just made my day!
oh yes, lisa, check it out. it really is a nice scan of the headlines. i have these gadgets:
wall street journal
nytimes
cnn
reuters
date and time
google maps
stock quotes
weather
wikipedia
facebook
and people.com for celebrity gossip!
I’ve never used iGoogle either but igHome looks cool. Also what’s up with Google taking this cool stuff away? I still miss Google Reader and don’t think that Bloglovin is as easy to use…maybe it’s just me though…
right? who does google think they are, just taking away beloved products. it makes no sense!!!
Hello Catherine! Check out http://www.hinto.co/ it’s a really great alternative to iGoogle.
Nice blog you have 😉
Thanks for showing one of the many nice options for replacing iGoogle! After looking for one I chose http://startme.com because it has a nice design, it is easy to use and it allows you to set it up in other languages, what is very uselful for not english speakers.