Five Free Alternatives to Kick Windows Sidebar to the Curb

Posted 11/06/2009 at 10:00am | by Florence Ion

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Windows Desktop Gadgets was a feature first introduced in Windows Vista. They are widget engine gadgets calmly docked on either side of the screen for easy access and can performs tasks like displaying the time, updating you on the current weather conditions and showing you CPU usage. Windows already comes equipped with default gadgets and includes an online widget library for additional downloads.

However, the standard Windows sidebar can seem limiting at times. And even though Windows 7 hides the Sidebar in the background, it's still a resource hog and not very customizable. Why not free yourself from Microsoft’s shackles and venture forth to discover other sidebar alternatives that work just as well and enable you to do some really awesome customization.

Vista Rainbar V4

Vista Rainbar looks exactly like it’s been plucked from Vista’s original Aero interface, but packed with twenty gadgets and applications to decorate your desktop with. After you’ve downloaded it, simply Right click on the icon in your tray, or a gadget on the desktop, to configure the sidebar to your liking.

Rainbar comes equipped with add-ons like CNN and BBC RSS feeds, several analog clock skins, and monitors for various system functions, even arbitrary ones like your optical drive. It also contains some of the original default Vista gadgets, like a Windows Media Player controller and desktop wallpaper view, as well as 14 different skins to bring a little more flare to your desktop environment. To edit your preferences, however, you will need to edit a text file for each gadget, which can be tricky for the computer shy.

We would like to add that Rainbar is bilingual and seems to have been transplanted from France, so don’t be intimidated if you get a little confused with some of the menu items; the preferences and options are all easily understandable for the native English speaker.

Google Desktop

While it may seem cliché to include one of the biggest internet companies on such a niche list about sidebars, Google Desktop is a candid choice because it integrates iGoogle’s user-friendliness and utilitarian functionality onto your desktop. This downloadable client allows you to tack on gadgets to your sidebar, which can display computer statistics, tempt you to play a game, and keep you connected to the web without an open browser window. The desktop application also comes loaded with a photo slideshow for easy distraction from your work, a weather monitor, and a to-do task list, which can be saved to your desktop as an individual file for later archiving.

Google Desktop also indexes files from your hard drive and enables you to bring up a quick Google search dialog box with two hits of the CTRL key. Preferences are simple and easy to set up; the real customization happens with what types of gadgets you choose to display in the sidebar. If the width is too thin for you, each individual gadget pops out into a resizable window. For users with more than one Gmail account, Google Desktop also allows you to sign in with one account and remotely send and receive emails, allowing you to log into a second account with your browser.

It all comes down to whether or not you want one more app in your life swaying you towards Google’s way. Frankly, we think that Google Desktop is a worthy replacement for the Windows Sidebar and it’s the only one out of the five we played around with that we can confidently say is 100% stable.