Blackle: saving the world by painting Google black

Filed under: Web services, Google, Search

Blackle: saving the world by painting Google black

by Brad Linder Jul 27th 2007

Apparently it takes more energy for your computer monitor to display a white web page than a black one. So while the modern web standard of white and bright colored backgrounds with dark text is great for readability, it might not be great for the planet.

Heap Media decided to do something about it by creating a custom version of one of the most popular white-backgrounded sites on the web. Blackle is basically Google, but black. It's powered by Google, so you should have pretty much the same user experience when using Blackle as you do with Google. Only darker.

While there's some debate over whether a black-backgrounded Google will actually make an impact on the world's energy use, the folks behind Blackle say there's another purpose. At the very least, those who use Blackle daily will be reminded to find other ways to reduce energy consumption throughout the day.

Tags: blackle, energy, environment

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rick said 5:31PM on 7-27-2007

I've got a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that does the same thing to Google already. Works great.

I also prefer to code on a black background, I find it's easier on my eyes.

kyle said 7:52PM on 7-27-2007

no. your lcd monitor backlight covers the whole screen, and sends power to each red, green, or blue subpixel. a black pixel means that all three subpixels are powered, requiring more power than any other color.

Alex said 8:13PM on 7-27-2007

Here is a Dark Gray version of Google and Youtube using Stylish extension
http://userstyles.org/styles/1693
http://userstyles.org/styles/1078

Bradley said 8:30AM on 7-28-2007

@Kyle,

You are partially correct. On some LCD's black is the more power consuming color, on others white is. It depends entirely on the monitor type.

On my MacBook Pro, black consumes less power. By switching to inverse coloring, I can add approximately 40-50 minutes of battery time when I am not plugged in. On my daughter's Dell, inverse colors actually results in reduced battery life.

wlada said 4:24AM on 7-30-2007

ilove you

James said 1:18PM on 7-30-2007

This:
http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2007/07/27/000000-for-the-environment/
should address the greenie arguments pretty well. In a nutshell, everybody should turn down their monitor brightness generally, and while CRTs do draw appreciably less power when displaying mostly black, almost all the consumer LCDs out there (sorry Apple fanboys, you're still in a quite-small minority) will see no measurable change between showing all-black and all-white. In other words, it's an interesting ideas, but the ramifications are small and getting smaller.

Georgmat said 8:30AM on 8-01-2007

Another article (from a respected newspaper) which shows blackle up as a bit of a sham.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/search-site-cashes-in-on-ecoguilt/2007/08/01/1185647951527.html

matt said 12:30AM on 8-02-2007

Hey check out www.ripple.org. It's a different way of helping with your search.

Each search generates money which goes to charities like Oxfam to fight poverty (whereas the blackle money goes to some guy in Sydney).

matt said 8:35AM on 8-02-2007

For those with LCD screens...check out www.ripple.org.

It's a different way of helping with your search. Each search generates money which goes to charities like Oxfam to fight poverty (whereas the blackle money goes to some guy in Sydney).

Sanjay John G. said 1:52PM on 8-02-2007

Blackle is just a copy of the first page of www.searchincolor.com, which has offered web search in color since a much longer time.
I dont know much about energy saving, but I do find green on white as the best color combination for search. That is available on searchincolor.

Sanjay

Webperc said 7:54AM on 8-13-2007

Blackle's attempt to claim tangible energy savings falls a little short when you look at the facts.

I have a different approach to reduce display power consumption, spend less time using the monitor by using a more efficient Google search. How?

I have created several Google Custom Search Engines on a website using Google Topic driven search technology. I link multiple search engines together creating a single custom search engine.

My approach is to use Google topics and categories in my Google Custom Search Engines to group search results.

Entering an initial search string in the search box and hitting the search button displays a list of topics below the search box. When you select a topic my search combines the previous search string with the search string I have placed inside the topic.

It works quite well and reduces the time you spend running searches.

I have three main searches to choose from. The Plasma TV Custom Search makes extensive use of topics.

Plasma TV Custom Search: www.webperc.com
Music Custom Search: www.webpercc.com/tab-hut.htm
Google Search: www.webperc.com/google-search.htm

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Ray Szasz
www.webperc.com

ishan said 4:41PM on 8-27-2007

blakle

Jason said 10:54PM on 9-01-2007

For those who find the light text on black background too difficult to read, there is Greygle. It uses a grey backgound with dark text that some might find easier to read. Also they have links off the main page for adding it to your searchbar and for a few international focus searches

Jason said 1:10AM on 9-03-2007

This is in response to the recent posts on blackle which got under my skin a) because it isn't really agreed on that it works and b) he's actually making money from it, but it goes into his own pockets!!!

Since it is is common knowledge that black pages in general don't do anything productive, I would suggest regrowgle.com as an alternative.

I know it's not the answer to everything, but unlike blackle etc who are making money from uneducated searchers, regrowgle.com re-invests any profit back into environmental schemes in a bid to try and offset a small part of your web use.

Dave Blogg said 8:24AM on 9-04-2007

I've just noticed that the previously UK-only site www.BlackGoogle.co.uk has just launched a fully functioning US version on:

www.BlackGoogle.co.uk/HomePageUSA.htm

Christene said 2:18PM on 9-11-2007

Yes, there are several things going on with blackle, but people tend to forget that there is more need of user interactivity then the stupid blackle itself.
Now the age is of VIDEOS users are not going to shift from google to blackle just like that. There is a site named http://www.yaarii.com that gives the option to search videos as well as as the regular web search. I think I would bookmark this site , because it gives the option to see any video in the same page without moving your ass!

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