The Boring Things Screensaver
The Boring Things screensaver ranks open source projects by their OpenSSF Best Practices badge percentage — a self-assessment against roughly a hundred criteria covering vulnerability reporting, static analysis, automated testing and reproducible builds. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the The Boring Things screensaver works
The saver reads The OpenSSF Best Practices badge API, key-free.
No account and no key: the request goes straight from your browser, or from this site's own refreshed copy of the feed where the source does not permit browser access.
Values are drawn on a canvas that resizes with the window, so it works on a laptop or a wall display.
If the source is unreachable the saver says so on screen rather than showing stale numbers as though they were current.
A worked example
Each project shows its name, a one-line description and a bar scaled to its badge percentage — green at 100%, amber above 70, orange below. The badge measures process, not code quality, which is precisely why it is interesting: most security failures are process failures rather than clever exploits.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display without changing the data.
- Add it to a Multi-view grid to watch it alongside other live savers.
- Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a 100% badge a guarantee of security?
- No. It is a self-assessment that the project has documented and automated the practices known to reduce risk. It says nothing about whether the code contains a vulnerability today.
- Who awards the badge?
- Projects self-certify against published criteria and the OpenSSF hosts the register. The criteria are objective enough that the claims are checkable, and the whole register is public.
- Is this real data?
- Yes. It comes from The OpenSSF Best Practices badge API, key-free. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.
- Does it cost anything or need an account?
- No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.