Having apparently abandoned former principles of simplicity and unintrusiveness, Google now punishes account holders by sticking coloured icons next to every Google search result and, worse, animating them on a mouse-over of the result. Obnoxious! There currently seems to be no setting to remove these that I could find, but I figured a way to use AdBlock to hide them away. If you have AdBlock installed on your browser, simply add:
www.google.com##[class="esw eswd esws"]
www.google.com##[class="esw eswd eswh"]
www.google.com##[class="esw eswd"]
to your custom filters. There, somewhat cleaner search results!
Edit: Now you also need to add:
www.google.com##BUTTON[class="gbil esw eswd"]
www.google.com##BUTTON[class="gbil esw eswd esws"]
www.google.com##BUTTON[class="gbil esw eswd eswh"]
Edit: OK, I found another way to fix this.