What are the best Linux screen-savers / screen lockers?

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Jul 4, 2020

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5 Options Considered

Best Linux screen-savers / screen lockers	Price	Last Updated
-- XScreenSaver	-	Jul 3, 2020
-- Light-Locker	-	Jul 4, 2020
-- GNOME Screensaver	-	Jun 22, 2020
-- XSecureLock	-	Jul 26, 2019
-- Xlockmore	-	Jul 12, 2018

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score 30 · Answer 1

XScreenSaver

Top Pro

Many options to choose from

Top Con

Bad security design

xscreensaver does not grab the keyboard immediately and in all cases. It also does not blank the screen immediately after an unsuspend. This means that a) you might post your password in a chat if you had it focused before the screen lcoked, b) anyone can see your screen if they just open your machine. See More

RodJLinux's Experience

Great selection of screensavers. I used this for a long time and it constantly surprised me with screensaver variations that I'd never seen before. Recommended if you like 'eye-candy' as I do. See More

Top Pro

Has a good security model

Runs as a daemon with non-root display modes.... See https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/versus-xlock.html See More

PhilosophicalThoth's Experience

I have used xscreensaver for many years but had to completely discontinue its use and advise anyone I know to not use it following a security breach for which it was responsible. See More

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score 16 · Answer 2

Light-Locker

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score 9 · Answer 3

GNOME Screensaver

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score 3 · Answer 4

XSecureLock

Top Con

Cannot auto-lock after a certain time

By itself it doesn't support locking the screen after a certain duration of inactivity. See here. See More

Top Pro

Created by Google with security in mind

Authentication and screen saving in separate processes so that crash of these processes will not unlock the screen. The main process is kept minimal for easy auditing. The main process regularly refreshes the screen grabs (just in case). The main process regularly brings its window to the front, to avoid leaking notifications. The main process resizes its window to the size of the root window, avoid leaking information by attaching a secondary display. The main processes uses only a single buffer - to hold a single keystroke. Therefore it is impossible to exploit a buffer overrun in the main process by e.g. an overlong password entry. The only exit condition of the program is the Authentication Module returning with exit status zero, on which xsecurelock itself will return with status zero; therefore especially paranoid users might want to run it as sh -c "xsecurelock ... || kill -9 -1" :) See More

Top Con

Complex installation

Need to compile from sources for most distro and to also manually call it to lock the screen. See here. See More

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score 1 · Answer 5

Xlockmore

Top Pro

Very simple

Xlockmore is a set and forget screenlocker. To this end, there's no frontend or advanced configuration. See More

Top Con

If it crashes, it vanishes

This takes your screenlock down, rendering it not locked. See More

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What are the best Linux screen-savers / screen lockers?

5 Options Considered

XScreenSaver

My Recommendation for XScreenSaver

My Recommendation for XScreenSaver

Many options to choose from

Bad security design

Has a good security model

Light-Locker

My Recommendation for Light-Locker

My Recommendation for Light-Locker

GNOME Screensaver

My Recommendation for GNOME Screensaver

My Recommendation for GNOME Screensaver

XSecureLock

My Recommendation for XSecureLock

My Recommendation for XSecureLock

Cannot auto-lock after a certain time

Created by Google with security in mind

Complex installation

Xlockmore

My Recommendation for Xlockmore

My Recommendation for Xlockmore

Very simple

If it crashes, it vanishes

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