White Too Harsh? Soften the Background Color

Using Microsoft Office Outlook, I noticed the background was such a bright white that it hurt to look at it. The background color is sort of customizable by adjusting the system color for windows as follows:

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5. For RGB values, use the same number between 245 and 255
   

You can also make a similar adjustment for Mozilla Firefox by going to about:config and changing various color options to #f8f8f8