Are free screensavers safe, or full of adverts?
Some are risky, but Screensavers by Zaweba is free with no adverts: original art drawn in code, offline, no account and no administrator rights needed.
Free screensavers vary a great deal. Plenty of download sites wrap them in installers with adverts or extra software, and a .scr file is a program, so it can do anything a program can. Screensavers by Zaweba is free software under the EULA with no adverts: its screensavers are blocked from the network, install into your own profile without administrator rights, and every picture is drawn by Zaweba's own code.
It's sensible to be cautious. Here's why screensavers have a mixed reputation, and what to look for in one you'd be happy to run.
Why screensavers get a bad name
A screensaver on Windows is a program with a .scr ending instead of .exe. Windows runs it when the PC is idle, often when nobody is watching. That makes it an easy place to hide something unwelcome, and over the years a lot of free screensavers have come bundled with adverts, toolbars or worse. Many also ask for administrator rights during installation, because the usual place for screensavers is the Windows system folder.
None of that is true of screensavers as an idea. It's true of the way some of them have been distributed.
How these ones are built
Screensavers by Zaweba takes the opposite approach on each point. Each screensaver is blocked from the network, so it can't fetch adverts or send anything anywhere. There's no account and no sign-in. Installation goes into your own Windows profile, so no administrator rights are needed and nothing is written to the system folders. The .scr host program is about 0.93 MB, followed by a zip of the screensaver's own web files.
The art is original too. Every picture is drawn by Zaweba's own code, and the screensavers have plain, descriptive names, such as Aquarium, Fireworks and Night motorway, rather than borrowing famous names from old Windows versions.
Screensavers you make yourself
The same rules hold for screensavers you build. When you make one from a web page folder, the page runs full screen with no network access, so a page that tries to load something from the internet simply won't get it. That's a good safeguard if you're turning a class project or a page someone sent you into a screensaver.
Checking any screensaver you download
For screensavers from elsewhere, a few habits help. Get them from a source you trust, and be wary of installers that offer extra software or a browser extension. Scan unfamiliar .scr files with your antivirus before running them, and right-click and choose Test before installing. If a screensaver asks for administrator rights, ask yourself why it needs them.
What free means here
Screensavers by Zaweba is free software under the EULA, offline, with no account. There are no adverts inside the screensavers and none in the manager. You get the full pack, the live previews, the several monitors setting, the frame cap and battery saver, and the tools to make your own, without paying or signing up.
If you're choosing for a family PC or a work machine where you don't have administrator rights, that combination of offline, original and installed only for you is about as safe as a screensaver gets.
