Top 4 Best News Widgets You Can Get for Windows PCs
TechRadar Gadget
Desktop widget for Windows 7 and Vista that shows the latest news on TechRadar, enabling you to customize display settings and checkup frequency.
TechRadar Gadget is a desktop gadget made for Windows Vista and 7, which provides the latest news from the TechRadar.com website. You can read summaries and full-length articles straight from the tool, without having to reset to a web browser.
Keep track of news on TechRadar
It's automatically synced to TechRadar at startup and shows the latest four news pieces in a list, displaying their name and date of publish. The number of shown stories can be switched to six, eight or ten per page, while the remaining pages can be explored until you find an interesting subject.
View summaries and full-length articles
Clicking on an article reveals its summary in a slightly inconvenient manner, forcing you to scroll using horizontal and vertical bars to learn all information and view pictures.
On the other hand, you can ask TechRadar Gadget to display the whole article in a large and more comfortable window which resembles a simple and elegant web browser, complete with a search tool, search Clicking a popout button on the upper-left corner of the frame launches your default web browser with the current article's page.
Configure gadget settings
The widget is capable of updating the RSS feed at the given interval between 5 and 60 minutes. It can also auto-scroll the RSS feed at a specific time (10 seconds to 20 minutes). Moreover, you can set the default search type to website or product reviews, disable search history (particularly if you share the PC with other users), as well as reset options to default.
Evaluation and conclusion
It worked smoothly in our evaluation, without causing the OS to hang, crash or indicate errors. System resources were minimally used.
To conclude, TechRadar Gadget features surprisingly rich options for reading the latest news articles on the TechRadar website.
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ESPNSTAR.com Football Widget
A useful Yahoo! gadget worth having on your desktop for checking news, results, standings, and fixtures from the Barclays Premier League.
ESPNSTAR.com Football Widget is a lightweight Yahoo! widget designed to help you keep an eye on the latest news from the Barclays Premier League.
It boasts a clean and straightforward layout that allows you to perform most operations with just a few clicks.
The gadget lets you read the most important headlines in the main window and get more information about them via your default web browser.
What’s more, you are offered details about the latest results, standings, and fixtures.
Other options offered by the Yahoo! environment are represented by the possibility to prevent the windows from being dragged, set the opacity level, and ignore mouse events.
What’s more, you can hide or close the widget, and move it to any area of the desktop. Since it doesn’t comprise any configuration settings, even rookies can master the entire process with just a few clicks.
During our testing we have noticed that Google Search Engine Widget carries out a task very quickly, displays data accurately, and no errors showed up throughout the entire process.
As it would be expected from such a small utility, it remains light on system resources, so it doesn’t hamper the overall performance of the computer, nor interfere with other programs’ functionality.
To sum things up, ESPNSTAR.com Football Widget offers a simple software solution when it comes to helping you monitor news, results, standings, and fixtures from the Barclays Premier League. It can be easily configured and installed by all types of users, regardless of their experience level.
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NASA Asteroid Watch Widget
A simple-to-use Yahoo! gadget that offers information about the comets and asteroids passing near Earth, namely date, approximate diameter, and distance.
NASA Asteroid Watch Widget is a lightweight Yahoo! widget built specifically for informing you about the asteroids and comets that will get relatively close to the Earth’s surface.
It boasts a clean and intuitive layout that allows you to perform most operations with just a few clicks.
The gadget offers information about each asteroid or comet, namely date, approximate diameter, and distance.
What's more, you can find details about the name of each object by simply hovering the mouse cursor over its encounter date, and view additional information by accessing a website via your default web browser.
Other options offered by the Yahoo! environment give you the possibility to prevent the windows from being dragged, set the opacity level, and ignore mouse events.
You can also make the gadget stay on top of other applications, and this proves to pretty useful, especially when dealing with multiple tools at the same time. What’s more, you can hide or close the widget, and move it to any area of the screen.
Since it doesn’t comprise any configuration settings of its own, even rookies can master the process with just a few clicks.
During our testing we have noticed that NASA Asteroid Watch Widget provides good image quality, and no errors showed up throughout the entire process. As it would be expected from such a small utility, it remains light on system resources, so it doesn’t burden the overall performance of the computer, nor interfere with other programs’ functionality.
To sum things up, NASA Asteroid Watch Widget offers a simple software solution when it comes to helping you keep an eye on the date when asteroids and comets get close to the Earth’s surface.
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BBC News
A sidebar gadget that delivers the latest BBC news and videos to your desktop, enabling you to read articles and perform online searches.
BBC News is a small sidebar gadget that provides access to the latest news and videos published by the popular BBC channel. It provides information at a glance about recent events from all domains, be it finance, sports or weather.
Once installed, the gadget is displayed on the desktop, enabling you to set its position using drag and drop actions. Clicking on it expands the gadget, revealing a new window where you can read the top stories published by BBC.
Aside from this, the gadget offers one-click access to video and audio resources, as well as some of the most popular articles published that day. Also, you can easily launch the BBC News, sports or weather section using the default web browser.
In addition to this, the gadget comprises a dedicated search form that you can use to submit your keyword to Google. Thus, entering a word in this field opens the corresponding Google page with using a browser.
The right-click menu includes all the standard options that are available for such applications, enabling you to set the size of the gadget, adjust its opacity level and set it to stay on top of all the other opened windows.
BBC is one of the most visited news websites worldwide and a gadget such as BBC News can be of assistance to anyone who wants to stay up to date with the latest events. It enables you to view the latest headlines right from your desktop, without using a browser.
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