I have been a faithful user of iGoogle for years. I did not consider it something vital and did not spend much time on it, but when I've heard the news it will close in 16 months ( November 2013 ), I realized that it was my (only) daily source of world news, weather and recipes.
Even if, by far, not the most used website, I think Google is doing a bad move here. I know many people that use iGoogle, more than Google+, honestly, and even if I understand the choice, I think Google is pointing exactly in the direction that I do not like (promoting more profitable Google products).
This is an extract from the news page:
I really like iGoogle -- are there any other alternatives?
On your mobile device, Google Play offers applications ranging from games to news readers to home screen widgets.
If you’re a fan of Google Chrome, the Chrome Web Store provides a similar range of options like productivity tools and applications to check the weather. In addition, just like iGoogle, you can personalize Chrome with a theme.
This is as helpful as convincing users to set the blank page as homepage.
First of all, I am sure there is a big number (the majority? They should know) of people using iGoogle from PCs, including me, so Google Play is useless.
For the rest, they just suggest to use Google Chrome. Please tell me where is the bit where they suggest alternatives, if you can find it.
Since Google didn't do a great job providing alternatives, I went looking for them and I can suggest a few. As trying them out is worth a thousand words, I will not spend much time describing them.
- Netvibes: maybe the second most popular after iGoogle
- Protopage: very easy to use, but less implementations
- Favoor: clean interface
- uStart: there is no possibility to share content (which I regard as good)
- Webmag: similar to Netvibes, promoted even for non-smartphones
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