For most home users, screensavers serve an entertainment purpose. This helps in protecting user and company data. Screensavers in most corporate organizations make use of automated workstation password protection. The advantage here is that system resources are used only when the system is idle, and thus user productivity is not affected. One of the these is for activating a background task, such as a virus scan or other scheduled applications.

With the improvements in display technology, this problem has been minimized or eliminated, and screensavers are now used for different purposes. Screensavers were originally intended to prevent phosphor burn-in on legacy monitors - on these monitors, if a static image remained on a screen for too long, that image could become permanently 'burned' onto the screen. Sometimes it may ask for a password before returning control to the user.Ĭomputer settings allow users to set the amount of time of inactivity before activating the screensaver as well as the type of screensaver to display. However, the security aspect as well as the entertainment they offer (. The screensaver is terminated when the mouse is moved or a key on the keyboard is pressed. In addition, LCD flat panel monitors do not use phosphors and are not subject to burn-in. When the system becomes idle, the operating system activates the screensaver, which causes the physical display screen to either go blank or be overlaid with graphics as provided in the display settings. Screensavers can be written in various programming languages or designed using a variety of tools.

What is the purpose of a screen saver