Yahoo Widgets vs. Google Desktop Gadget

[klinsmann]

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I am thinking of having some widgets and gadgets on my desktop. You see it would be great to have temperature being directly shown on my desktop along with the daily news. Also I would like to have clocks of multiple countries all set on my desktop so that I can manage the time to contact my overseas clients. I was researching about it on internet when I found that there are two tools that can actually help me with it, Yahoo Widgets and Google Desktop Gadget. Can someone help me decide which out of these two are better?

[chrismartin4u]

In my point of view Google Desktop gadgets are much better but Yahoo Widgets are also not so bad.

[Felisha]

The first thing about these two desktop modification tools is that Mac OS doesn’t support Google Desktop Gadget. Both the desktop modification tools, which are Yahoo Widgets and Google Desktop Gadget are supported are Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. You will notice that there is a vast difference in file size of both these desktop modification tool. Google Desktop Gadget is of size 1.7 MB while Yahoo Widgets is of 11.6 MB. Though Google Desktop Gadget is of less size, after installing it becomes of same size as that of Yahoo Widgets. It is just that Google Desktop Gadget downloads the files from internet while installation.

[%Achan]

Google Desktop Gadget mostly focuses on gadgets while Yahoo Widgets focuses on widgets. I mean Google Desktop Gadget will give you tools like unit converter, currency converter and so on. The default gadgets that you will find with Google Desktop Gadget are Gmail, clock, To Do list, news, feed reader, sticky notes, photos and weather. Similarly you will find widgets like Yahoo! search, maps, notepad, address book, mail, photos, Flickr, Calendar, Weather, Finance, digital clock, CPU monitor and widget gallery in Yahoo Widgets. In total you will find 360 gadgets for Google Desktop Gadget while you will find 3884 widgets for your desktop.

[Xylina]

Talking about technical part of these gadgets, I will tell you that Google Desktop Gadget will not consume much resources but is less stable than Yahoo Widgets. When using Yahoo Widgets you will notice that it will consume large memory for operation. But it will guarantee you stability much better than Google Desktop Gadget. In Google Desktop Gadget, the gadgets consume a limited amount of memory that is reserved by the application initially. But in Yahoo Widgets, every widget needs to consume memory differently. So in short more widgets you add the more memory it will consume.

[Isaac1]

Both the desktop modification tools, which are Google Desktop Gadget and Yahoo Widgets are built on XML and JavaScript. Google Desktop Gadget provides abilities like detaching the sidebar from one side and places it on other side of the screen. It can be collapsed to remain hidden in one part of the screen. You can also make it remain on top of other applications. Even Yahoo Widgets provide same abilities. Another extra ability is that you can scale and resize the widgets however you want to. One best property of Google Desktop Gadget is that it provides features like search and communication directly on desktop. Also the settings of Google Desktop Gadget can be saved and synchronized with Google Desktop Gadget on other computer. In Yahoo Widgets, the widgets provide flexibility as they can be modified and developed manually. There is also a community dedicated to it.

[Gamba]

One word of advice, both the desktop modification tools will need large amount of resources. If you have a low end PC then it is suggested that you don’t use them. For smooth operation you need to have at least 2 GB RAM in your computer, high speed internet and preferable video memory. Also you will notice a considerable decrease in startup time as these applications launch themselves during the startup along with other processes. If you are planning to run some high end game, then it would be good to disable it. Also while workings on activities like video editing or 3D rendering, you should disable these utilities.