iGoogle Alternative

[demwing]

So Google is killing iGoogle at the end of the month, and those who use the page need an alternative.

Here's a great selection of alts: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/6-great-alternatives-igoogle.htm

But I wanted to toss in a page called uStart (http://www.ustart.org/). It can import your iGoogle settings, has a look and feel very familiar to iGoogle fans, and is portable between systems.

Compare the two - here's my old iGoogle page:



and my new uStart page:



Pretty close, right. Hope it works for you!

[Carla in Sequim]

1. Ustart looks the closest to iGoogle, but...

how do I transfer my gadgets and gmail accounts to it?

My husband has a huge gmail account for his business. Will it be lost?
Also, please remind me where to change the new start page on the computer.

Thank you so much.

Carla

[backscatter712]

2. I found I had used iGoogle for only a few use cases.

First, I used it as a convenient place for bookmarks. I simply imported them into Google Chrome. Since Chrome is synced with my Google account, even if I'm on a totally different machine, I simply log into Google, and poof, there are my bookmarks!

Then there were the app widgets - Gmail, Facebook, calendar - I put Google+, Gmail, Facebook, etc. into Chrome tabs, pinned them, and also made sure they were available from the default Google Chrome home page. I found I only slightly used the miniaturized versions of them that were on iGoogle, so the full versions put into pinned tabs (so the tab is small and only shows the icon) works for me.

Finally, the only thing I had left in iGoogle were RSS feeds. I switched to Feedly for that.

[Carla in Sequim]

3. You lost me at "imported"

Sorry, I'm not real savvy on all this.

Should I use Chrome instead of Ustart?
Can I transfer my Gmail account to it, in tact?
I also have gadgets...weather, sports and the Dow. I don't use facebook or feeds.
It sounds like I can put them in tabs, so I assume, unlike iGoogle, it isn't all there on one page. Is that right?

I really need to get this done and would appreciate your help, backscatter.

Carla

[Raffi Ella]

4. Great post, thanks.

I've been using Symbaloo, it's OK. I'm gonna check out some of the others listed.

[northoftheborder]

5. Thanks for this thread.

A google start page user here worrying about transferring all my data, especially bookmarks. I use weather, date & clock, a choice of news headlines box, a recipe box, my email, of course, a to-do list box, which I use for misc. facts and info I want to save.

I'm confused about which of the top margin lines are part of Google, and which are part of Safari, or Google.

Is there a contact at Google to ask questions? I don't understand why on earth they are canceling this page, the least they could do is help with a transfer. Before going to G-Mail, and their page, I always used the server's start page, and I could go with GVTC which is my present server. I could not transfer my "favorites" (bookmarks) to the google page, had to be done manually, which would take forever now, I have so many.

Thanks for any suggestions or help.

[northoftheborder]

6. Looking at your google and ustart above...

Where are your bookmarks on the ustart page?

[gopiscrap]

8. welcome to DU

[RoccoR5955]

9. Thanks for the tip

The only thing that seems to be missing are "today's birthdays" and "this day in history."
I always check those for my personal curiosity, and it's handy to have them on iGoogle.