???? – 2013retired
Internet Explorer 11
“It held the door open to the web for millions, then politely showed itself out.”
“Your homepage, your rules — the web tidied up, and somehow felt less like home.”
iGoogle began life in May 2005 as the Google Personalized Homepage: a customizable start page where you arranged the web to your own taste. By 2007 it spoke 42 languages across more than 70 country domains, and by February of that year 7.1 million people were making it their front door. In April 2008, a full fifth of all visits to Google's homepage came through iGoogle.
Google quietly decided the need for it had eroded over time, and on November 1, 2013, iGoogle was discontinued. No scandal, no drama — just a beloved portal fading out because the web had moved on. For millions, the internet's front page went back to being someone else's idea.
Spotted something wrong? Every fact on this page traces to a dated source. Fixes make the graveyard better for everyone.
“It held the door open to the web for millions, then politely showed itself out.”
“Thinner, lighter, and gone before we got tired of looking at it”
“It lived up to its name, then quietly rode off into the prepaid sunset.”