Here is a simple alternative to iGoogle.
Set Gmail as homepage from your browser.
Create two bookmarks on the bookmark bar from your browser, Firefox or Chrome. One bookmark for Gmail and one for google.com.
From your Gmail account, click on “Settings” > “Themes” and select from “Custom Themes” > light or dark, it doesn’t matter. Then search for a background. For example: “city night”. You can set any background from that list.
Gmail will look as the old iGoogle. There are even the official themes from iGoogle like “Tea House”.
So, Gmail will now be your homepage and it will look like iGoogle. When you need to search on Google, just click on the icon from your bookmark bar from your browser.
I won’t use any other services that are clones for iGoogle. It’s too risky to lose your Google account since all services are bound, YouTube, Blogger, Gmail etc.