Want to hide all the stuff you do not really need on your personalized iGoogle homepage?  Thanks Super iGoogle, a handy Greasemonkey script, you can simplify iGoogle to only show you the content you need to see.

Why hide iGoogle content?

I really didn’t want to hide everything you see in the screenshot, I mainly needed a way to hide the left sidebar, because I really only use one page on iGoogle for my calendar, RSS links and e-mail.  Once you get Super iGoogle installed into Greasemonkey, the tool itself is pretty self explanatory.

What about other Google links, settings and more?

You get a drop down menu added to the iGoogle web page, where you can choose to hide or show the header, the sidebar, the footer and the mini search the script adds to the very top of your iGoogle page.  Other menu items include:

• Advanced Search
• Search Preferences
• Language Tools
• iGoogle Settings
• Change Theme
• Get artistic themes
• Themes for Causes
• Add Stuff
• Classic Home
• My Account
• Sign Out

So all the usual iGoogle settings are there, they are just tucked away so they are not a visual distraction to you.

Download the Super iGoogle user script on UserScripts.org.

If you are a user of the Stylish extension, you will love this little tip.  I use iGoogle, however I never stay on the page long enough to use the embedded chat they included a while back.  However I am happy to say I found a solution. 

Install this Stylish user style:

• Hide iGoogle Chat Tab on iGoogle Home Page

Once doing so, the chat (as you seen in the screenshot above) disappears.  To make it work for me, I had to change:

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en

to

http://www.google.com/ig

However, once that was done – it worked flawlessly.  An easy hack for a very lovable web page.  Got to love these Stylish user styles!

How do you make it happen?  Drag this link to your bookmarks bar:

• iPhone iGoogle Homepage

Now, right-click the bookmark, and select Properties.  Click the check mark box for loading this bookmark in the sidebar, and then click on the Save Changes button.  Now when you click the bookmark, it should open up the iPhone version of the iGoogle Homepage.

If you have RSS items on your iGoogle page, they show up very nicely (you can see them in the screenshot above) and some items, like weather will be click-able to show you more information on whatever they are about.  The search box is about useless (due to it being so small) but other than that, another fine iPhone/Google/Firefox hack-around bookmark.

Bonus Tip – drag this link (iGoogle mini) to your bookmarks bar to make it a popup version instead.  If you like that, you can read more about the Top 5 Google Popup Bookmarklets on Mitchelaneous.

I got an e-mail from a Firefox Facts reader the other day that wanted to know if I knew of an easy way to add more of the iGoogle startpage tools in their sidebar. After seeing my other various Google sidebar tips and tricks.

Now we all know that iGoogle is probably not the best start page out there, but it does offer some unique plugins and tools that make it handy to have easily accessible. So what do you do, if you want to use iGoogle but perhaps you are a Netvibes fan?

The iGoogle Sidebar extension makes it to where you can enjoy the iGoogle experience in a side bar optimized to make it all look good.

Some of the features include:

• Un-squeezed modules – makes them fit in better to the sidebar
• Remove header, search box and footer; removed margins; (optional) reduced font size

It might also be worth making note of the fact that only the modules on the left side of your iGoogle page are visible in the sidebar. So you might have to do some customization and moving around before you use the iGoogle Sidebar extension.