Hardcore Google Searchers: Save Energy & Extend Battery Life With Blackle

I just found out about this new site, called Blackle, which offers Google searching with a black background and greyish white text. This is meant to have an environmentally-friendly impact on larger scale due to the popularity of Google search. If you're interested in the specifics of their energy-saving mission, click here.

As for me, I'm not sure if this site will catch on with most people, being that the text is slightly less easy to see than the usual black-on-white. However, after spending so much time doing internet research and typing my undergraduate thesis, Blackle is in fact relieving for my strained eyes. One other disadvantage is that this site is not officially Google. I really like the convenience of having my Google Account menu on top with Gmail, Google Documents, News, and more.

I also strongly recommend Blackle if your laptop is on battery power and you want to extend battery life. The reason is because your laptop screen takes up a lot of (if not most of) your laptop's energy, whether your laptop is plugged in or not. When you're on battery power, you might have a dimmer screen and a more frequent "standby" mode (which turns off the screen if the computer is idle for a couple of minutes). Using Blackle will further help, just as having a black desktop would help. But I don't think I could handle a black desktop. I like the look of a landscape scene...it's uplifting.

So if you are doing a lot of research on Google, as I often do for school, and you rely on battery power a lot (or your eyes are strained by the bright screen), then having that black background will surely help. I'm not trying to argue against using Blackle for environmentally-friendly reasons, of course. I'm simply trying to provide alternative incentives for those who might not be willing to completely switch over to Blackle. If this results in making a speck of a difference in Blackle's cause as they say it will, then that's great too.