Don’t get 
me wrong.. I love Google. I use it every day. But it does have it’s small annoyances, such as forgetting your search preferences regularly; I *always* have mine set to Strict Filtering, but occasionally it ends up reset to Normal and starts returning photos with search results. NO THANKS!…. but that’s OK, because I can reset it.
What’s more annoying (incredibly so) is that today – 10th June – Google has decided unilaterally that EVERY computer will show a background image on the Google homepage. NO THANKS!
I played with background images last week when they were first released, and got bored very quickly (I don’t even have a desktop background image). But I did have the very useful option of turning it off again. NOT SO TODAY!
Googles official anouncement on their blog says “To provide you with an extra bit of inspiration, we‘ve collaborated with several well-known artists, sculptors and photographers to create a gallery of background images you can use to personalize your Google homepage. Included in the collection are photographs of the works of Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness, Polly Apfelbaum, Kengo Kuma (隈研吾), Kwon, Ki-soo (권기수) and Tord Boontje, as well as some incredible photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand and National Geographic. We’ll be featuring these images as backgrounds on the Google homepage over the next 24 hours.
Of course, since we want your Google homepage to be personal to you, you can still choose an image or photo from your computer or your own Picasa Web Album. Whether you select an image from our new artist collection or prefer to have a more personal touch on your homepage, you’ll still enjoy the speed and ease of use that you’ve come to expect from Google.”
Notice that although they say you can choose a different image, they WON’T LET YOU REMOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why not, Google? I don’t care for this feature, so I want it gone. I’ve never heard of any of these ‘well-known artists, sculptors and photographers’ that you mention? (and exactly how do I get a sculpture on my desktop anyway? Unless the rock I feel like throwing at it counts…).
Anyway, the solution I came up with was to create a blank image of my own. Dark colors work best, with a message to Googleon it. I saved it as a gif, at the same size as my computer screen – 1920 x 1200), and used that as my background image. Apparently it uploaded to some sort of blogger image library, but I don’t care… if Google is reset tomorrow, I’ll never use that image again.
I apologize if you see this post because (a) my website is still in a process of flux, with several broken links, and (b) because you had to search for a solution because you’re as annoyed as I am! Thanks for reading!
p.s, Want a copy of the image? Here it is!
Background Image to use on Google, 10 June 2010