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For many years, I have used iGoogle as my default browser, but that, like everything else useful and user friendly, is being trashed at the end of the month.
Anybody have any suggestion about what to replace it with?
The features I liked at iGoogle were were the quick access to several frequently-used gadgets (Wikipedia and Dictionary search fields) and timely onscreen displays (weather,calendar, time zones, sports scores) always there without clicking anything.
I think Google now want me to use "apps", but since I have no other devices, I have no idea what an app looks like or how to get one or use one. As far as I know, "app" is just an expletive used by actors on TV commercials to emphasize their hip superiority. You know, they have an app for Expedia, so in three seconds, they can whip out their phone and with one finger sweep and two clicks, book a $150 a night hotel room and flight to Bali.
my.yahoo.com was iGoogle before there was an iGoogle. My mother has been a user for over a decade.
OK, tried that. They force me to have a cluttered page with tons of entertaining junk I don't want, with no way to remove Flicker and Theaters and Horoscope, and I can only edit it by selecting from their list of sites. If I click "add content" and try to enter my preferred sites, it just says "No search results were found. Please try a different search query."
Yahoo strikes out.
Oh, wait, I found out how to remove them. If you just randomly wander around the screen with your mouse pointer, every once in a while an icon will suddenly appear in a blank space. Life is full of surprises.
Two other suggestions in this article, one of which I've tried and another that I haven't.
Netvibes is the one I've tried. I found it to be solid as a place to aggregate news sites and feeds, but it lacks the gadgetry of iGoogle and My Yahoo. I've never tried Protopages.
Aha. Found it. On regular google, there is a grid icon that opens the apps. Impossible to delete any junk icons, nor rearrange them ("under development", how long can it take Google geiuses to figure out how to do that?) and you have to scroll down page by page to find the app for, say, "Images", which used to just be a tab at the top of the page.
And there is actually a thread in a C-D forum that equates Google, God and the Singularity.
Also was startled today when this New Google showed up with the grid and the aps. Clean and simple it is for me, no junk or clutter. Had saved an older Google version that goes back. It has the old black bar at page top with the boxes. Also has the gear button at upper right that I use to turn off Google Instant, which I detest and always turn off. www.google.com/webhp?complete=0
Also was startled today when this New Google showed up with the grid and the aps. Clean and simple it is for me, no junk or clutter. Had saved an older Google version that goes back. It has the old black bar at page top with the boxes. Also has the gear button at upper right that I use to turn off Google Instant, which I detest and always turn off. www.google.com/webhp?complete=0
Play, Offers, Blogger, Shopping, Wallet. Drive -- those are not "junk and clutter"? And the red g+ box, that comes first, where they try to drag me kicking and screaming into their goddam enhanced social networking experience? One of these days, I expect I will have to click "moire from Google" in order to reach the websearch bar.
I wish there was a Google option that I could bookmark to, called "Grown-up's Google", to bypass al the junk and clutter. Oh, wait -- that's what iGoogle was. Even the Gear icon is gone. You now have absolutely no control over your Google presentation. You get it exactly the way Google wants to give it to you -- like or lump it. No more option to turn off Google Instant, or anything else that you detest.
I think I'll choose as my default browser the next malware toolbar I get, better than Google and less in-my-face. Where is Conduit and Mixi,DJ when I need them?
hmm, good question. I have wondered the same. I don't know of a real replacement for the iGoogle page within Google. I think Google wants such a Gmail user to go to Google Plus as an incentive, but I could be totally wrong.
Google is also phasing out GTalk, but don't know the time frame, does anyone else know?
I know that GTalk will be replaced by Hangouts, which is in the chat area of Google Plus. Google is getting rid of some duplication within its offerings, but not on top of all the changes right now.
Another mild issue I have with Google is, now that they are integrated with YouTube, constantly stopping videos in the middle and badgering me to use my real name, thus revealing that they know my real name and are prepared to reveal it to whomever asks, regardless of how nefarious. According to discussions, once you agree to do that, you get the same badgering treatment from all other Google-related sites, trying to force subscribers to put their actual identity under the snooping eyes of people making dossiers.
Could you just make your own local page with all the stuff you want on it? I did a while back and it worked well but I just use a blank page now.
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