Horse Screensavers

Today if you own or use a computer, chances are you have at least one screensaver installed. In fact, it’s estimated that about 4.8 million people download various horse screensavers from different websites, daily. That is a whole lot of fish, birds, family photos and horse screensavers loaded onto computer systems. The real question then, is why are people downloading these programs so frequently? The answer, of course, is it depends. Today, many people use horse screensaver images as a way to personalize their monitors and even as a way to entertain them, while the horse screensaver mode is on. It can be soothing to watch fish swimming or running horse screensavers. For others, horse screensavers provide an added layer of security, requiring a password to boot back into the system once screensaver mode is on. And still others use them as informational tools, for learning languages, viewing a real time stock ticker and learning facts about various subjects or countries.

Companies use horse screensavers to provide a uniform look for corporate systems and even to prevent employees installing workplace inappropriate images. Corporations can also use screensavers as a means of data processing through distributed computing. Essentially, when company computers are inactive, data is processed from another source. The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) screensaver is an example of this, as it sends back results on the data processed, allowing SETI to reduce the processing time for all the various signals received from its radio telescope.

So, while the reasons so many people download horse screensavers vary, screensavers are popular programs that have evolved quite a bit from their original purpose. Back in the 1980’s computer monitors were built based upon cathode ray technology, which meant the inside of the screen was coated with a phosphor compound that lit up when beamed with high-speed electrons. When static images, like toolbars, video game backgrounds etc. stayed on, eventually the monitor became prone to burn in. Burn in, appeared on the screen as grayed out areas, and eventually the monitor was permanently damaged. In order to prevent (or at least delay the damage) software developers designed a program to change the image after a period of time, and so the screensaver was born. The first screensavers were black, but eventually innovative designers came up with simple programs that displayed images.

The first screensaver program was probably The Magic Screen, which was quickly licensed to individuals and major corporations through word of mouth advertising. Seeing the success of this program inspired other software developers and soon a whole industry was devoted to creating creative, horse screensaver programs. It didn’t take too long before moving images became 3D and swimming fish, flying birds and even running horse screensavers were available.

Of course, computer monitor technology has changed a lot in the past twenty-five years, and horse screensavers are no longer used for their original purpose, but their popularity continues for horse screensaver lovers. While many popular programs, including art, landscape and horse screensavers are available through websites for free, frequently free horse screensavers have attached adware, spyware and occasionally even viruses. Adware is one way that software programmers are paid for their free programs.

Downloaded programs are installed directly to the system directory, and are then included in the list of available screensavers, shown in the Display Preferences dialog box. Computer users can have a variety of different horse screensavers, changing them from family photos, to movie clips, to landscape images and to running horse screensavers and back to standing horse screensavers.

So, even though users no longer need to protect monitors from burn in, nature, pet and even running horse screensavers remain a popular way to personalize computer systems.