Save energy by managing your PC's power
Granola is a small app that claims to manage your computer's power to make it as environmentally-friendly as possible - in fact, it shows you exactly how much energy you have saved.
The Granola interface is slick and attractive. It tells you how much energy you have saved in terms of kilowatts, money, CO2 and CPU energy. It then expresses those numbers in more practical terms - when we were using it, it claimed to have saved 3 daisies, 6 blades of grass and 50 phytoplankton!
You can change Granola's settings by clicking the little clog icon in the top right corner. Here you'll be able to turn on and off the Granola savings and customize some of the settings - it's just a pity there's no quick access to the on/off mechanism and that the only two currencies available are sterling and dollars.
Granola has very complete online information, so it's easy to check exactly how they make their calculations and assess for yourself if you think the app does what it claims. If you do, you'll be glad to know that it also has Facebook and Twitter integration so you can spread the message!
Granola is a cute, user-friendly app that just might help save the planet.
This is a minor update that contains a few bug fixes.
Changes
This is a minor update that contains a few bug fixes.
User reviews about Granola
by Mira Uwa
cause granola is an application that can help me save a laptop battery that runs out quickly. i hope granola really helps the battery problem on my laptop.
More
by ExxelOffroad
Awesome! I Highly recommend installing this, small file, simple install. .
Quite Legit! I have to say it's impressive, it will reduce you computer/laptop energy consumption MOST of the time, but when you need that power Granola steps back so quickly that you WILL not see or feel a difference in your systems performance.
Pros:
simplicity meets functionality
it's free, AND saves you actual dollars.
Cons:
I didn't know about it sooner. More
by Anonymous
Dubious value.
This software has dubious value beyond the dollar amount saved display and cute comparisons (saved 3 daisies, 5 blades of grass and 25 phytoplankton). I ran it on the most miserly setting on a Windows XP Pro SP3 desktop and the only observable change it made was switching my Windows power scheme from Home/Office Desk to Max Battery, which crippled my processing power and made tasks like browsing the web take orders of magnitude longer. Worse yet, when I set Granola back to the middle or highest performance setting, there was no change -- not even after uninstalling it did I get my performance back. I had to dig around for awhile before I found that it had changed my power scheme and never unset it. This was with their latest version (5.0.11).Also, often when launching it told me GranolaManager.exe was not running even though it was in my startup items. This required manually browsing to the installation folder and double-clicking to start it.I'm sure if I hooked a load meter up to my PC, I'd see less watts being used while this software ran, but I could accomplish the same thing by going to my Windows power management console and choosing a power-saving scheme -- just without the phytoplankton references.
Pros:
Neat comparisons
Cons:
System power settings persist after uninstall
Doesn't appear to actively do anything other than change system power settings and accumulate questionable data More
by Anonymous
Every environmentally conscious person should have this!.
Granola is a great application! It unobtrusively sits in the the notification area of your PC and saves electricity by making sure your CPU is only running in the power level it needs to. This means that when you are just listening to mp3's your CPU isn't using any more electricity than it has to. Also, when you are gaming or watching a video (or anything that requires more processing power), Granola actively puts the processor at the optimum power saving level! I have been running it on my laptop and desktop now since it was called "MicroMiser" and I have not noticed any change whatsoever... but at the same time I've saved a decent amount of electricity! I recommend this program to everyone and I think Windows should buy this company and incorporate it into their operating systems, but that's just my two cents. This is a great program!
Pros:
Runs absolutely silently and never bothers you whatsoever.
Actively saves you electricity.
Has NO effect on performance.
Cons:
None.
The only thing one could possibly complain about is having another icon in their notification area, but you can just choose to hide it if you wish. More