The Bad News: Why You Should Never Download Free Screensavers for Windows

 

Free Waterfall Screen Saver!! Free Wallpaper!! Free Smileys!! 10,000 High-Quality screensavers!! Sports, Nature, Animals, and More!!

Have you ever seen advertisements like the above? Don t be fooled. A huge number of these free screensavers, wallpapers, cursors, etc., contain spyware -- actually, virtually 100% of them contain spyware. There are many very sad stories of people who downloaded a cute goldfish screensaver and got their Favorites/Bookmarks filled up with pornography sites(here), or who had a new employee who downloaded a screensaver which then killed access to the internet and the office network (here).

So, do not download free screensavers! It s just not worth it. Do not download wallpapers, themes, cursors, smilies, or anything of the sort, either. Just don t ever download anything from an advertisement. This may seem like a strict and no-fun policy, but if you disregard it, you have a good chance of winding up very, very sorry.

 

The Good News: Rare Exceptions To The Rule

But what if you really want a cool screensaver? Screensavers can be a lot of fun. Aren t there any good ones? Well, yes, but they're few and far between. So, I have scoured the internet to find those rare gems for any Visionary Customers who may enjoy screensavers. Here are a lot of clean, safe screensavers that don t contain spyware (as of April 2005):

http://www.reallyslick.com/ Several really high-quality screensavers. Skyrocket won t work unless you download OpenAL for the audio. But the other ones should work as long as you re computer is fairly new. My favorite is Helios. You can play with the settings to produce different effects, which makes them extra fun. For instance, try setting up Lattice to be flying through donuts mmmm, donuts.

The Electric Sheep screensaver. Downloads and plays hypnotic fractal animations. To use this you really need a high speed internet connection. So now you have yet another reason to sign up for Visionary's D.S.L. or Wireless internet! Click here to see if you qualify.

Strat Wars. The epic battle for control of your screen. This is an awesome screen saver! It's like a battle scene from a Star Wars movie. I highly recommend it, if your computer s graphics card can handle it. There s lots of additional battle scenarios you can get, too, like Borg Attack and Battlestar Galactica.

System47. This one emulates the primary computer system of Star Trek's Starfleet and Federation. In other words, it makes your screen look like the touch-screen panels of Star Trek on which they're always looking stuff up and plotting courses.

RollerCoaster2000. Whee! What fun. Loop, careen and plummet, all from the comfort of your computer screen.

Magic Screensaver. The simple line art animation that really started screensavers for Windows (It s the predecessor to After Dark).

Johnny Castaway. This is a good one if you have an older computer. Johnny is shipwrecked on a desert island, and he occupies his time with various activities. It will show up in your screensaver list as "Screen Antics". It does have some bugs (notably, the pirate ship leaves a black area). But it's a fun one.

Bugs. Bugs eat away at your screen.

Stars. Like the old screensaver that s like zooming through space in warp drive, but with fancier graphics.

Fractal Lab. Pretty cool; generates fractals.

http://www.wischik.com/scr/savers.html Whole bunch of free screensavers. I have only tried a couple of them.

http://www.planestate.net/ two nice screensavers.

http://crow.riot.org/downloads.php two more nice 3-D screensavers

http://www.e-graviton.com/fireworks It s not nearly as cool as the page hypes, but it does show fireworks. The free version works just fine, though you can register if you wish. If you really want a great fireworks screensaver, get Skyrocket to work by installing OpenAL.

TunnelVision. The author of this screensaver was kind enough to send me a copy. Thanks Ben! It is nothing fancy, but it does simulate travelling down a tunnel. The source code is included so you can modify and improve it if you are a programmer.

There, that probably ought to be enough screensavers for anyone. So don t mess around downloading other ones, unless your system is extremely well protected against spyware, and you are an expert computer user, and you like living on the edge. Because otherwise, it s just a matter of time before disaster strikes. Also, do not follow any links to other screensaver sites that may appear on the above pages, because they'll probably take you to screensavers that do have spyware. Understand that although the above screensavers have no spyware, they still may have bugs or not be compatible with your system. Visionary has no control nor responsibility over these savers. These links are just provided as a service for any of our screensaver-loving customers sad to hear the news that almost all Windows screensavers have spyware.