The first background image I got was absolutely awful. It greatly obscured the actual content of the page, and didn't look very good either. I tried the "Change background image" link, but couldn't actually change it without logging into a Google account. In fact, it was so awful that I left and did my search with Bing.<p>Trying the homepage again just now I got an image that had a little more contrast with the page content, and looked a little better, but still is not very attractive overall. Most of the sample pictures they list don't look very appealing either.<p>This is one of the biggest failures I've seen from Google. Marissa, if you're listening, please give us our white background back. I will not be executing any more Google searches with these backgrounds, and choosing my own background on an iGoogle homepage is not an acceptable solution.<p>In all the time since my first Google search in the late 90s, this is the ONLY thing that has given me sufficient motivation to switch my default search engine away from Google.