While watching a movie the other day, I couldn't help but notice a bank of computers in the background of a particular scene, all of which had the classic 'ribbons' screensaver running on their screens. Memories came flooding back, and it dawned on me that I've not used a screensaver in years. A shame, as I remember being mesmerised by the patterns way back when, and who can forget how cool 3D text used to look?
These days, there seems to be little call for screensavers as we tend not to need them as protection against image retention on CRT displays. And if it's power savings you're after, the better bet is to let the display turn off when idle. But aside from looking pretty, there are still uses for screensavers; they can provide an extra layer of security, requiring a password to return to the desktop; and some screensavers can be configured to trigger other tasks such as a virus scan.
We're curious to see if screensavers are still a thing, so for this week's question let us ask: do you still use a screensaver? Let us know using the comments facility below.
