A fireworks screensaver for Windows, free and offline

Fireworks is one of the classic screensavers in Screensavers by Zaweba. Rockets climb from the bottom of the screen and burst into rings, peonies, willows and two-colour bursts, and you choose how often they go up, which colours they use and how big the bursts are. It's free software, runs offline and installs without administrator rights.

A fireworks display suits a screensaver well. The screen is mostly dark, so it's restful, and then something bright happens. Here's how to make the most of it, from the burst shapes to using it on a big screen for an occasion. Everything is drawn by Zaweba's own code, so the display isn't borrowed from anywhere else.

The burst shapes

Each rocket bursts in one of four ways. A ring opens as a neat circle. A peony is the round, full burst you picture when someone says firework. A willow droops, its sparks trailing down slowly. A two-colour burst splits into two shades at once. The mix keeps the display from feeling repetitive, even if you leave it running for an evening.

Colours, frequency and size

How often runs from 1 to 10. At 1 there's a rocket now and then, which is calming. At 10 the sky is busy, more like the finale. Colours offer every colour, gold and silver, blues and teals, or reds and oranges. Gold and silver looks elegant on a big screen at a party; blues and teals is cooler and quieter for a desk. Burst size, also 1 to 10, controls how much of the screen each burst fills.

A low frequency with large bursts is a good starting point. Each one gets the screen to itself and you can watch the sparks fall.

Using it for an occasion

Fireworks makes a nice idle screen for New Year's Eve, Bonfire Night or a celebration at work. On a television connected to a laptop, set the frequency high and choose the several monitors setting you need: one on each monitor, one stretched across them all, or only the main monitor with the others black. Press Preview full screen to check it looks right on the big screen, then let it run.

For an evening event, it's worth setting the frame cap in Install and options to 30 or 60 frames a second. The battery saver blanks the screen when a laptop on battery drops below a set charge, 25 per cent by default, so plug in if you want the display to last.

Setting it as your screensaver

Open Screensavers by Zaweba, select Fireworks and play with the settings while the live preview follows them. Press Use this screensaver to build it into your profile. Windows' Screen Saver Settings then opens: choose it from the list, set the minutes of idle time, and tick the password option if you want one on resume. Because settings are read whenever the screensaver starts, you can change the colours for a particular night without reinstalling anything.

If you get the settings into a muddle, Reset to defaults puts them back.

Keeping it fresh

Fireworks works well in a random rotation. Tick it with Aurora and Starfield warp, which share its dark sky, and use Install several. You get one screensaver that picks one of them each time the screen goes idle. It's a small thing, but walking back to your desk and not knowing which one you'll see is part of the fun.