Blackle

Blackle (of . English : black = black and google ) is a modified version of the Internet - search engine Google , in which the search items can be seen in white letters on a black background. This deviation from the normal version with black letters on a white background is intended to reduce the power consumption of the computer monitor . The site is operated by Heap Media Australia and has been available since January 2007.

Energy saving

The assumption that a “black” version of Google saves electricity is based on an Energy Star study, according to which a CRT screen with a black surface consumes 59 watts of electricity, while 74 watts are required to display a white screen . In contrast to this, however, no corresponding power savings can be determined with LCDs . Since OLED screens manage without backlighting, there is probably potential for savings here again.

According to the operators themselves, the idea of setting up Blackle came from an assessment in a blog , according to which Google could save 750 megawatt hours of energy a year with a black screen background. The calculation is based on 10 seconds per search query, 200 million Google search queries every day and a global share of 25 percent CRT monitors.

Since these figures are no longer up-to-date in 2017 (on the one hand more than 5 billion Google search queries a day, on the other hand a further decrease in the proportion of CRT monitors), the value of 750 megawatt hours no longer reflects reality.

Range of functions

Blackle uses the custom Google Custom Search Engine and thus shows the same search results as Google. There may be variations in the order of the results displayed because Blackle does not know the search history of the users. Blackle integrates Google's image search, but does not have video, news and shopping searches or expandable search settings. A special feature of the site is a counter placed under the search input window, which shows the statistically calculated amount of electricity that has been saved since the site was put into operation.

Currently (2017) Blackle is available in fourteen country versions and six languages. The German version - formerly schwarzle.net - can now be found at de.blackle.com .

Web links

Blackle (English)
Bill Weihl: Is black the new green? Report in the GoogleBlog , August 9, 2007
Facts and Fallacies on Black Google blog entry on ecoIron, July 27, 2007
Blackle: The dark side of Google. (No longer available online.) Chip Online , August 16, 2007, archived from the original ; accessed on July 17, 2020 .
Black background: Save electricity with "Blackle". (No longer available online.) RP Online , July 27, 2007, archived from the original ; accessed on July 17, 2020 .