And what if you are a member of a BOINC network, such as FightAIDS@home or ClimatePrediction.net - is a screensaver net positive then?

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php

i used a kill-a-watt on my laptop and saw no difference. if you look at the scientific paper on blackle's site, it shows that lcds also require more energy for an all white screen vs black. Perhaps their equipment is more accurate than a killawat I looked at the paper and using an average of the 17'' CRTs( one i presume is the most common nowadays) the savings is 24 watts, but it doesn't matter because all of the LCDs required more energy for white except one which there was no observed change. unless LCD technology has changed since the study(2002) It seems to make sense that using blackle would save energy.

I am loving this green movements. Its really good that people are worried about our future.

I recommend using http://www.greenergle.com and following its 10 easy ways to save energy. Plus its nicer to watch (since userfriendly colorcoded search results) than Blackgrey-blackle and its copycats.

I just posted a video about this on for my web video show, Real World Green. http://realworldgreen.com. Interesting results of the Kill A Watt test.

thanks, eric. realworldgreen.com

Although there is debate about whether or not using black backgrounds saves energy. I think its a very innovative idea on helping the environment any little way we can. Since Blackle was launched there have been other search sites as well that introduced this concept. My favorite is Greenback Search at http://www.greenbacksearch.com/.

It uses eco-friendly colors but more importantly it purchases carbon offsets for users of the site plus it has some tips and information on the environment that are informative. Check it out for yourselves.

I was totally unaware of the debate going on about black web sites until after I pointed LightoftheWorld.com to my Amazon.com astore. There is no doubt that black will win out not because it is more energy efficent but because it is more elegant. (if you know what you are doing.)

I have been designing in black since my very first web site in 1997. And have won four Golden Web Awards from the International Association of Web Masters and Designers.

The future belongs to the bold. Eventually every site will be mandated to have a black background unless something drastically changes in physics. My goal is for lightoftheworld.com to be the black Amazon.

Let's do some real math. There are over 2 billion I.P. addresses in the world today. Assuminbg 1 hour of use per I.P. address per day and a saving of 1 watt per hour that equals a saving of two billion watt hours per day. that is equal to 2 mega watt hours per day. Very conservative figures to say the least.

These are just basic figures but history will bear me out. Again I just came into the debate, separate and apart from the nay sayers,

I suggest that all of you grab a piece of the Rock. This is the Beginning of the creation of God. P.S. visit TheCreationofGod.net to see my first site.

I preffer to use another black google search engine named blackoogle.
I have a TFT monitor and I must recognize that I preffer black background only for not hurt my eyes with white screens.

http://www.blackoogle.co.uk

To people from United States

http://www.blackoogle.us

It's true that energy is only saved with a black screen on CRT monitors. However, LCD monitors consume less energy than CRT monitors in general.

I've seen people say that a black screen is harder on the eyes. I can't believe people would say that! I look at my LCD monitor all day long, and I find that reading off of a white screen is MUCH harder on my eyes. Long before the first post regarding Black Google ever surfaced (sometime in 2006), I went searching for a black google (by googling "black google," of course).

Back then, there was only one black google search page that actually showed search results with a black background (believe me, I tunneled down over 20 pages in the google results, and that was the only one). I've been using jabago.com ever since and I've found that it's greatly reduced the strain on my eyes.

So many people say that it's just the opposite, that a black screen is harsher. Anyway, there's been all this hype about black google and whether it actually saves energy, and I think people are missing out on the true advantage of a black background. If anyone is still reading this post, I'd like to challenge them to try the black google page at jabago.com for a day and then report back here whether or not you found it reduced eye strain compared to the regular google page. Also, please note whether you're using a CRT or LCD monitor (maybe that makes a difference).

Jabago was originally branded as "Black Google, a Search for Sore Eyes" before Google made them re-brand. I think their new look is much nicer anyway (I don't know if their screenshot will show up in this post):

All "black Google" sites don’t actually save that much in power. But if you still want to do it, use www.pifty.com At least they give some of their earnings to a real company who is actually doing something good for the environment.