Screensaver Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
A screensaver is a computer program originally designed to conserve the image quality of computer displays by blanking the screen or filling them with moving images or patterns when the computers are not in use. Today, screensavers are primarily for entertainment or security purposes.Until recently, most computer screens depended on CRT (cathode ray tube)ss. CRT images are generated using electron beams which are "launched" from the back of the monitor and "draw" images continuously on the screen. Most computer programs paint images in the screen. Some of these images (letters, pictures, animations, menus) are usually moving or changing, and never stay in the same place for long. But some portions of the screen (like the Start bar in Microsoft Windows, or the typical upper "score" bar of some videogames) are always in the same place, sometimes for hours or even days or months. Particularly with older CRTs, these sorts of images, continuously drawn in the same place for a long time, could damage the screen because the electron rays always hit the same points on the screen. Damage would consist in poor image quality, and those fixed images could remain "burned in" to the same place like "ghost lines" even if the image eventually changed. This is commonly known as "screen burn". You could observe this effect in some old classic videogame machines; after some years showing always the same images, many of them feature those "ghost images."
Screensaver programs were originally designed to help avoid these effects by automatically changing the images on the screen when the computer was not in use. They can be usually set up to launch automatically, waiting a specified amount of time after the last keystroke made by a user. Then the screensaver switches the image to black, or sometimes produces some animation effects, thus avoiding any "fixed" images. The screensaver remains active until a user enters a keystroke or makes a mouse movement. At that moment, the screensaver closes and the former screen contents are restored, to allow the user to work again.
Modern CRTs are much less susceptible to burn-in than older models. Flat panel displays are used in all laptop computers and are gradually replacing CRTs on the desktop. Flat panels are burn-in resistant because they use a fluorescent bulb or similar light source instead of an electron beam. For this reason, screensavers today primarily are decorative or for entertainment, and usually feature moving images or patterns and sometimes sound effects. Screensaver software also has been adapted as security measure. Many screensavers can be programmed to ask users for a password (called "locking the workstation"), before permitting the user to resume work. In addition, some screensavers activate a useful background task, such as a virus scan or a distributed computing application.
Screensavers are not to be confused with power management features, which place the computer in a low power state after it has been idle for a specified amount of time. In fact, screensavers can actually waste power, because they can prevent the computer from entering the lower power (or sleep) state, and they often cause the CPU and GPU to perform more calculations, and keep the hard disk running for longer than if the the computer were idle.
On vulnerable Microsoft Windows PCs, screensavers should be disabled. If there is any possibility of an end-user opening an email attachment with the file suffix ".scr", having a screensaver enabled is dangerous. Windows will execute .scr (screensaver) files automatically – this has the potential to allow a virus or malware to install itself as the default screensaver. Such malicious software will then be automatically executed when the screensaver kicks in.
Using a screensaver with a flat panel or LCD screen actually reduces the lifetime of the display since the flourescent backlight remains lit and ages faster than it would if the screen was turned off completely. As flourescent tubes age they grow progressively dimmer and are expensive to replace (if it can be done at all).
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