You Can Now Use Any Website as a Screensaver

Move over stock nature images, personal photos, and trippy, pre-installed moving scenes, screensavers just got way more useful. Earlier this week, Lifehacker shared a tool that allows users to use live websites as their screensaver in just a few simple steps. Whether it's your favorite cat-related Tumblr or the site beloved by curious knowledge junkies everywhere, your away screen can now display what's happening in real time out there on the world wide web.

To get it, download the WebViewScreensaver program posted by Github user liquidx. Once installed, the program will present you with a window like the one shown above, where you can add or change the URL for a new screensaver. The preview will show how the page will appear when your computer takes a nap, and there are other settings to tweak the new gadget to perfection.

Lifehacker came up with the smart idea to use one of Giphy's TV pages as a screensaver so that the animated images can play automatically on your screen. A weather site or news site would also be helpful; since the program loads the screensaver from the URL, you can still see all the updates even when we're not actively browsing.

The WebViewScreensaver program also works with GIF URLs and has sound capabilities, so at the very least you can have a little fun with your coworkers by using classic videos in the place of pretty pictures.