WebCogitoStop. Stay. Think.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I loaded my browser to my favorite homepage, http://www.google.com, and instead of the fast, minimalistic page with just a search box, I got a shadowed Google image, with a sloooooowly fading-in background.
Now my homepage is black, with some huge image covering my entire browser.
HA! But there’s a link on the bottom left for options! Surely there I can disable this, and return my homepage to the snappy search box to which I’m accustomed. Err… no.

Google Trends: remove google background

I can change the image. To another image. But not disable.
A Baltimore newspaper blog post incorrectly described this as Google giving users the “option” of a background image. This is incorrect. This is NOT an option.

Google: This sucks.

And I’m not the only one that thinks so.

According to Google’s own Trends tool, “remove google background” is the SECOND trendiest search on its engine right now, behind only “blackhawks parade” (the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last night).

Google, your users are trying to tell you something.

FIX FOR THE GOOGLE BACKGROUND IMAGE: If you set your homepage (or links or however you get to google) to https://www.google.com with an “httpS” rather than “http”, you don’t get the background image forced on you. For now. Who knows how long before Google decides to force another “option” on us.