Well, that wasn’t fun while it lasted. Google’s Bing-like default background images that were first introduced in the wee hours of the morning have already been taken down. You’ll still be able to add a custom background if you really, really want to (check the lower left-hand corner of the page) but the rest of us can get back to enjoying our minimalism.
https://gizmodo.com/google-homepage-now-allows-custom-backgrounds-5559771
There’s no official word on why the quick abandonment of ship, but I’m guessing it had something to do with this:
UDPATE: The Google Blog has shed some light on the subject:
Last week, we launched the ability to set an image of users’ choosing as the background for the Google homepage. Today, we ran a special “doodle” that showcased this functionality by featuring a series of images as the background for our homepage. We had planned to run an explanation of the showcase alongside it-in the form of a link on our homepage. Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users. As a result, many people thought we had permanently changed our homepage, so we decided to stop today’s series early. We appreciate your feedback and patience as we experiment and iterate.
