Google ditches the bits in the bottom of the box

The sun is setting on another bunch of unloved, forgotten, or obsolete Google services in the Chocolate Factory’s rolling sweep of stuff that doesn’t warrant even minimal support. The most noticeable service to get the chop is probably iGoogle, which Google’s blog post says is being wound down over the next 16 months. The …

[Jolyon Smith]

Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Unless someone can tell/show me how to get a useful search+home page that also gives me headlines from favourite newspapers, stock exchange portfolio overview, a summary of feeds from a particular blog aggregator and my current stackoverflow "reputation"...

Sure, I have apps for these on my 'droid phone and slab, but on my desktop an iGoogle home page is the perfect place for these things.

This mobe device centric view of the world is rapidly becoming a very blinkered one.

[stuartnz]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

My sentiments exactly - I like the convenience of iGoogle as my homepage and its uncluttered layout with access to all the things I want access to when I boot up first thing is very handy. Sixteen months to find another portal that suits my taste, I guess.

[VinceH]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Agreed. One of the main things I have displayed on my iGoogle page is the same rss feeds that I get on my tablet and phone, all nicely synchronised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Eugh. iGoogle has been my home page for years now. It's never changed. It's just a set of RSS feeds. Just how much maintaining does it take?

This is awful, predatory practice on Google's part. They know fine well there is no high-quality competitor, and their suggestion for those currently using it is to switch to Chrome and use Chrome's apps. Like fuck am I going to do that.

Are there any worthwhile replacements? Something that'll display google, one's gmail and a selection of news feeds and widgets on a web page in a customised and secure manner?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Try using tabs. Google news (configurable) in one, other favourite stuff in others. If you're using Google Chrome browser, it will quite happily remember your tab settings, and hold them in the cloud for you if you ask it to. Otherwise, I'm sure other browsers will let you do something similar.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Clearly tabs are a replacement for a web page.

[Mark 65]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Probably one of the most important things about iGoogle vs Chrome is that iGoogle can be used in the workplace. I have tabs for news feeds, financial data, tech blogs, tech news etc. No way Chrome is ever going to be allowed in the enterprise.

[EdPearce55]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

Windows 8 tiles, my friend.

[Smallbrainfield]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

I like having iGoogle on my desktop and I don't want to have to fuck about looking for stuff when it's all already there on one page. I don't own a smartphone or a tablet and I don't want Chrome (despite Avast helpfully installing it last night, even though I unchecked the fucking checkbox).

Stupid Google.

[Smallbrainfield]

Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop

There is a petition going to try and save iGoogle.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/dont-kill-the-igoogle-webportal.html

It's just crawled to an epic 197 signatures, I think it needs our love, people. Get on there and sign it!

[mike panero]

Symbian’s shame

Some Nokia yeah maybe phone

Tiny screen

fucking shit CPU

BUT you could yell at google and maybe see what you wanted to

And when you wanted to use the phone bit it had a "pick up the phone button" and a "put down the phone button" geez some UI design, years ahead of its time

Maps street view navigate

go on kill pigs with a bird?

Fuck no I could not twat away time like that!

That is so cool!

[It wasnt me]

Re: Symbian’s shame

I have no idea what you're trying to say, but have an upvote anyway.

[undeadMonkey93]

Re: Symbian’s shame

Some sort of post-modern poetry I think.

[David Given]

Re: Symbian’s shame

I have just mentally visualised some guy in a black roll-neck and a beret crooning it in front a microphone in a poetry club.

Works pretty well.

[cordwainer 1]

Re: Symbian’s shame

Only if he is also playing bongos. Bongos are mandatory accessories for beatnik poets.

[shade82000]

Re: Symbian’s shame

Awesome poem, man. Have you been up all night?

[Paul 181]

Terrible decision to ditch igoogle I use it all the time.

Any decent alternatives ? Even bing considered

[J. R. Hartley]

Servifes?

Have you been drinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Servifes?

Probably mead. I'm sure there are words a lot like servifes in Canterbury Tales.

[Simon2]

No not iGoogle!

I have iGoogle set as my home page. Its how I keep up to date with the latest tech news. I have The Register, The Inquirer, Anandtech, Toms Hardware, PCWorld.com, Engadget, ExtremeTech, and Make Magazine on it. How will I get my tech fix if Google close it? Theres no alternatives.

[Matt_V]

Re: No not iGoogle!

Try netvibes:

http://www.netvibes.com/privatepage/1#General

It's pretty good :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, I share the iGoogle sentiments expressed above. I have mine set up to give me a quick oversight of the day's weather, news, tech news, and my inbox; it would be quite annoying to have to go back to doing all that by manually visiting a bunch of websites. I wonder if there's some similar function in Firefox yet that I've overlooked.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Google's loss

iGoogle is the only reason I tend to be signed in: Google might think it obsolete but its certainly handy to have everything in one place across platforms and networks. No iGoogle simply means lost data for them since they won't be able to track me from one session to the next.

[David O'Rourke]

Re: Google's loss

I agree exactly with the spectacularly refined chap. iGoogle is the only reason I signed up for a Google account. It's exactly the trade off between service and privacy that we are supposed to be aware of. iGoogle made it worth my while, without it, I'll almost certainly stay signed off and Google will lose some of my traceability

[Anonymous Coward]

Netvibes is free alternative to iGoolge, been using it for a few years with no problems and they have a paid premium service as well should you need/want it.

[MrF]

Netvibes has been super flaky since day #1...

...with everything from lengthy outages to unsolved incompatibilities. If it works well for you, then adding you to all the satisfied Netvibes users I know would bring the total to exactly one.

BTW, El Reg Rats: Google know you're attached to iGoogle. And they know this move will likely alienate some of you. Even so, they are willing to take the risk because they also know that if you are still using that service then you are -- relatively speaking, of course -- a geezer.

i.e.: Not in their target demo for conquering hearts and minds of future generations.

Meanwhile, they are convinced that if they will simply append a few handy iGoogle-ish features and functionalities to Google's new, unified 'sandbar' then many (or most) of you will stick around -- no real harm done except for the occasional bitch session about them good ol' days.

[brym]

meebo bar

nobody else disappointed about having to have a meebo bar instead of gtalk? if they're still going punch for punch in social networking with facebook, the floating footer bar concept is pretty old now. they're moving backwards. i thought gplus was better than that.

[geolight]

I am sick and tired of Google and their silly axing of things we use! I've been using iGoogle for years! just like many of the comments above, I have all my favorite RSS feeds, links, stock etc organised the way I want them and as my home page the minute I open my browser.

I have yet to see an App, for Windows 7 or Mac OSX that does this.

I think, Google just looks at stats and think if there is less than 500 million using something then it needs to go... well then, maybe Google+ should go too based on that metric!

Google get a fail for this.

[newtonslife]

Chocolate box View

In the world of Google, if they cant monetise it, we don't get to use it, notice how its not relevant because the cant place ads in the feeds.. that is all !

[Justin 9]

This is a sad day for me.

All my news at a glance, eben el reg is there.

Even my todo list is there at a glance, which my wife updates.

cannot see any reason for google to bin this other than no ad revenue.

[KjetilS]

Google does have an alternative to those using the RSS part...

I use Google Reader on my desktop and phone to stay up to date on news and other sites supporting RSS.

It doesn't support all the things iGoogle did, but it does do RSS very nicely

[Compact101]

My Homepage is going....

Like most of the above, I have used iGoogle as my home page for years now.

Great for quickly seeing, hotmail, gmail, evernote, weather and surf reports.

Quite miffed they are taking it away.

Can the register to a review of alternatives for the desktop?

[Compact101]

Re: My Homepage is going....

Ok so doing a quick search this morning and this one looks good for the PC (not looked at for mobile)

http://www.netvibes.com

[shade82000]

This is fishy

I have been using it for so many years, along with a lot of other people I know.

I turn my computer on and do all my offline stuff, then when I want to become 'connected' I open a browser. Right there, in one tidy layout, is all the latest stuff that I need to know about on the web. Simple and effective.

Apart from having my computer on and then reaching for my mobile to check the widgets, I don't know of any suitable alternative for the desktop and I'm not going to use two devices, it kind of goes against the grain of what every other company is trying to achieve.

Wait a minute, I smell fish. I think iGoogle is a lot more popular than they are letting on. Probably all the functionality provided by iGoogle will be moved to Google+ apps and then that will force you to set Google+ as your home page, thereby giving them a hit every time you open a browser.

I have never used facebook and probably never will. I did not like the idea of being automatically registered for Gogole+.

If they try to integrate it any further into my browsing routine then obviously I will stop using all of their services.

[spiny norman]

Looked at iGoogle once, but was already using My Yahoo! and couldn't see the point of changing.

[Alex Rose]

"reach out"

Does anyone else find it strange when US firms say they are going to "reach out" to you. The number of times I've been told someone's colleague as them to "reach out" to me is silly.

Why not just say "contact", "call", "email" or "phone"?

As far as I'm concerned only zombies, vampires and horror film killers "reach out", and they "reach out" FOR you, not TO you.

[TeeCee]

Re: "reach out"

You've heard of the long arm of the law?

Well American influence has even longer arms than that.

[8tpercent]

Head over here ---->

http://www.ustart.org/

[shade82000]

Nice one.

Cheers, I was just looking for a similar replacement and this looks good.

[Simon2]

Re: ustart

hmm yes that looks good.

[Rob Thorley]

iGoogle

I've been using iGoogle for as long as I can remember.

The company firewall blocks Google+ but not iGoogle, so I will miss this service when it goes...

[Anonymous Coward]

They still keeping Google+ then? Getting rid of iGoogle is probably another nudge in the direction of Google+. I guess that horse can still take a bit of whipping.

[Dante]

Silly on google's part - probably the only reason I actually log into my google account. Can't use google+ here at work so thats a no-goer.

Just found this though http://code.google.com/p/dropthings/ I'll have a mess about writing my own replacement.

[CAD MONKEY]

For many years I have used igoogle everyday at home, at work and on holiday. It's my home page anywhere I can access the web, irrespective of brower.

My company does not allow Chrome and the hotel I visit in France next week may not either. Any alternative's?.... And I refuse to use google+