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I have an LCD monitor,and from what I've read from the Wikipedia article,they only protect CRT and plasma monitors

which means that LCD monitors are not vulnerable to phosphor burn-in like those mentioned above

does that mean that screen savers are useless for LCD monitors?

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They are no longer necessary for their original purpose. Having said that, even windows 95 could blank the screen as power saving so they haven't been NECESSARY for a long time.

They can be set to lock the computer which is a good thing. Of course Windows + L is better.

At work the screen saver is created by our communications and media department and deployed to all workstations using group policy so its the electronic equivalent of sticking posters all over the place. Changes every couple of months.

They look pretty, sometimes. Not a very useful thing, but a feature none the less.

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  • I'm a linux user,but I agree with you the most :)
    – Mahmoud Hossam
    Feb 2, 2011 at 20:32
  • The only modern display technology that is prone to screenburn (the reason screensavers were invented at all in the CRT-era) is OLED. So a smartphone's screen could burn in, since they are often OLEDs. Especially smartphones, however, tend to turn off their screens very fast when not used, so unless you run your phone with its display constantly turned on, it's not even a problem for phones. Since computer monitors are only extremely rarely OLED, they're no problems either. As a result, today only TV screens (of OLED type) are effected by burn-in.
    – ultimA
    Dec 25, 2020 at 12:31
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No they currently have no use, LCD's do not have the same burn in problems as CRT's. Also newer versions of OS's have the ability to shut the monitor off when not in use which also saves power. They are just there to look nice even if you have a CRT still you can just set it to turn off the monitor after 5-10 minutes.

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Yes, they're useless except for aesthetic value. Let the "screen saver" power off the LCD. Remember that even if the screen saver image is mostly dark, there's a bright backlight wasting power behind the dark pixels.

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LCD monitors can suffer something similar to burn in with lazy transistors. If you leave your screen on for very long periods of time and have parts of the screen that never change, these pixels can ghost for a while, until they're coaxed into changing. However, this is very much an edge case and most people do not leave their monitors on for anywhere near that amount of time, much less without changing the screen. They still have utility, but only in a few situations.

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  • I've got pretty much permanent ghosting around the edges of my LCD monitors - but they are getting on for 9+ years old.
    – ChrisF
    Feb 2, 2011 at 20:20
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At home they're there to be pretty and colorful. However, you can also set them to lock your computer when they turn on, so other users will have to know your password to get back on. That's arguably a very useful feature.

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