Yahoo Widget

Yahoo Widget

Yahoo Widget was a widget engine that was launched by Yahoo in 2005. It enabled users to display mini-applications such as weather reports, news tickers, and games on their computer desktop. Yahoo discontinued the service in 2012.
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news weather desktop discontinued

Yahoo Widget: Mini-Applications for Your Desktop

Discover Yahoo Widget, a widget engine launched by Yahoo in 2005, enabling users to display mini-applications like weather reports, news tickers, and games on their desktop, discontinued in 2012.

What is Yahoo Widget?

Yahoo Widget was a widget engine developed and launched by Yahoo in 2005. It enabled users to display mini web applications known as widgets on their computer desktop. These widgets provided functionality such as showing weather reports, news tickers, calendar reminders, games, and other information.

Some of the popular widgets included stock tickers, RSS feeds, webcams, sticky notes, and world clocks. The widgets synced data in the background without needing the user to open a browser. Users could access thousands of third-party widgets submitted by developers to the Yahoo Widget Gallery.

The widgets were written using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Developers could use a software development kit (SDK) provided by Yahoo to build and distribute their own widgets. The widgets ran via the Yahoo Widget Runtime which was available for Windows and Mac OS X.

In 2012, roughly 7 years after its launch, Yahoo discontinued the Yahoo Widget service citing changing needs of users and declines in usage. Many alternative widget platforms have emerged over the years to fill the void left behind by Yahoo Widgets' closure.

Yahoo Widget Features

Features

  1. Desktop widgets
  2. Web widgets
  3. Yahoo widgets
  4. Third-party widgets
  5. Weather widget
  6. Clock widget
  7. Calendar widget
  8. Photo widget
  9. Games widget
  10. News widget
  11. Stocks widget
  12. Music player widget
  13. Sticky notes widget
  14. To-do list widget
  15. RSS feeds widget
  16. Customizable widgets
  17. Widget manager
  18. Online widget directory
  19. Developer SDK
  20. Mobile app
  21. Social features
  22. Sync across devices

Pricing

  • Freemium
  • Free
  • Open Source
  • Custom Pricing

Pros

Easy to use interface

Pre-made quality widgets

Customizable widgets

Third-party widgets

Online widget directory

Cross-platform

Syncs across devices

Free

Open source SDK

Cons

Discontinued in 2012

Limited customization

Heavy resource usage

Privacy concerns with data collection

Monetized user data

Buggy at times

Limited widget selection

No mobile app initially


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