Blackle Search Engine

Blackle Search Engine

Have you used Blackle? The Blackle search engine is nearly all black with the exception of text. Blackle is powered by Google search and has advertising from Google Adwords.

The idea of this search engine alternative is to save energy. At the time of the writing of this post, Blackle claims to have saved 1,483,358,797 watt hours.

They claim that Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002

This facts and numbers are up for debate because it is true, that in the older tube monitors (CRT or cathode ray tube), and it is not the same for LCD’s. LCD’s have a constant backlight which has no real change in power consumption based on the color of the screen.

A main complaint that I have of Blackle is that you are not able to do advanced searches like you can on google.com for blogs, news, videos, etc.

The potential for energy conservation is not the only reason why people like Blackle. There are many people who work on computers all day who suffer from eye strain and they find that the darker backgrounds like on Blackle are much easier on the eyes.

So, if you have not given Blackle a try, why not give it a run today. You may end up saving some energy, or at the very least, a little eye strain.