im running a semi modern mac. (early 2014) why in this day and age do we need screen savers still?

[AllaN01Bear]

Last edited Tue Sep 22, 2020, 10:27 PM - Edit history (1)

i can understand really old tech. ( i had a 386 pc with a amber screen and i understood that the screen savers prevented phospor burn in) but on lcd or l.e.d monitors ? thanks . i forgot to mention i am running a mac book air.

[cayugafalls]

1. I never use a screen saver, unless fear of intrusion while away.

But I am on my laptop a lot. Even if I was not, I wouldn't use a screen saver, unless I feared intrusion, then I would password protect it when away from keyboard.

If you are leaving your laptop for substantial amounts of time, close the top and it will sleep, saving the screen automatically.

[CloudWatcher]

2. Cats

I can think of a few reasons ....

1) Cats (or children). You can (and should) set it up to need a password to unlock. Keeps kids and pets from random keyboard entry.
2) You can still hook up old monitors to your new laptop. They might still need a screen saver to save on phosphor.
3) Clock. You can have the current time up and use it as a wall clock when you're near but not using the computer.
4) Snoops. To keep spies and such from reading your screen if you're called away and forgot to sleep your system.
5) Theft. If you have full disk encryption enabled, having your screen locked when you turn your back for a minute is a good thing. If you don't have full-disk encryption set, then it doesn't matter, you're letting anyone who steals your computer have full access to its contents.

But yeah, instead of screen savers I tend to hot-spot a corner to make it turn off the display. And I've got it set to require a password to "wake up" if it's been more than 5 seconds.

[AllaN01Bear]

3. thanks to those who commented on my post .

[Tetrachloride]

4. If I fall asleep with computer near, the screensaver tends to be quite a bit darker

than normal and therefore disturbs me less.