You should realize that companies that display live quotes must actually pay a license premium to the company that runs the exchange, hence, places like Yahoo! or Google cannot offer an external widget or embedded code to use.

Delayed quotes, perhaps, but not live ones. Some of the places you can find widgets for (as you say, desktop or index-based widgets) are usually fan-made, or they have a global license to show them (indexes are generally cheap to license, but individual stocks are not).

You can not - If you were a member of an exchange or a valid approved member providing fifnancial information to members you could obtain ticker information but since you are not you CAN NOT obtain that information.

There is no such thing as a "free stock market ticker" firms that do have them pay a hefty price the right to use them but to have that right they must be members of the exchange.

I have been searching for hours and can only find outdated widgets, or widgets that don't work, or widgets you can't customize, or widgets you have to pay a monthly fee, or desktop widgets.

I am just looking for a simple widget that I can add my own stock index of my choice. not preset index.

I don't really care what they look like as long as they are live, or up to date with current information.

Thanks