The iGoogle service was a powerful dashboard for the internet. It allowed users to access their favourite RSS feeds, news tickers, and Google properties all on one page. Users could view the latest instalment of their favourite web comic, see their calendars and social media profiles, catch up with their RSS feeds and more all via their web browser’s home page.
Sadly, Google made the decision to shut down iGoogle, for reasons that only Google employees will ever fully understand. This means that there are a huge number of people hunting for iGoogle replacements. While other search engines, including Yahoo, have tried to make their own iGoogle replacements, most have failed. The big draw of Google’s offering was that it was so comprehensive. There were gadgets for almost everything. Some web users have decided that there’s no point trying to completely replace iGoogle, and instead they have moved to RSS readers.
Why RSS readers?
RSS readers, such as Pulse for Mobile, NetVibes for your web browser, FeedDemon for your Windows desktop, or the Sage browser plugin for Firefox, make it easy for you to see all of your feeds in one easy interface.
RSS readers are, in some ways, better than iGoogle was for managing large amounts of content. They may not have the widgets and tickers that iGoogle had, but they do archive content, support categories and filtering, let you see at a glance how many unread posts you have, and even support some searching features.
You can view posts from inside the RSS reader and cache them for further reading, or you can open them in your web browser to go explore the blog. If you limited yourself to just a handful of blogs on your iGoogle homepage to keep the page manageable, then an RSS reader will be a breath of fresh air because it allows you to manage a much bigger number of blogs without feeling swamped or confused.
A proper iGoogle replacement
If you are looking for a full iGoogle replacement BlueG is a good option. It offers a similar layout and many of the same features, including RSS feeds, weather reports, news, how-to tips and shopping offers, as well as tabs for games, and a selection of gadgets that you can use to customise your start page. BlueG is perhaps the closest thing to a true iGoogle replacement available today.
It is unfortunate that Google decided to shut down the iGoogle service. The service was incredibly popular with power users around the world. There are many services springing up to replace it, but there will always be an iGoogle shaped gap in the lives of the most dedicated users. One lesson that many iGoogle lovers have learned is not to depend on Google’s smaller projects.
iGoogle isn’t the only thing that the company has sunset. Believe it or not, they once had their own dedicated RSS reader – Google Reader, but they closed that down too!