Putting an Old Laptop and an Old Phone to Further Use

Putting an Old Laptop and an Old Phone to Good Use

In almost every home there is a notebook that nobody has touched for years, plus a phone that was left over after the last contract change. Selling them usually brings in too little, throwing them away seems a waste – so they just lie around.

And yet they can still do something: a device with internet access and an up-to-date browser is enough to take part in eBesucher. Advertisers pay there for their website to be shown to visitors – and anyone who has these pages shown to them gets paid. Instead of lying in a drawer, the device then brings in a small amount every month.

This article shows which of your old devices is suitable for it, how it keeps running without you following up, what you have to watch out for with the battery and with heat, what it can take on alongside that – and what a further year of use saves in resources.

How the Earning Works – Briefly Explained

eBesucher has existed since 2002, and it has two sides. On the one side, website operators book advertising: shops, blogs, news portals and YouTube channels pay for their page to be shown to visitors. On the other side there are members who have exactly these pages shown to them and get paid for it. You decide which side you are on – both with the same account.

The tool for this is called the surfbar. You open it as a tab in your browser, and there one booked page after another is displayed – usually between 30 seconds and one minute per page, after which it moves on. Which pages come up depends on which campaigns currently match you: advertisers target their booking by country and language, among other things.

For every remunerated page, points are credited to you, immediately and visibly in your profile. Points can be paid out in euros – or used as advertising credit for your own site. Registration costs nothing, and you need no starting capital. This is described in detail under earning money while surfing.

Why an Old Device Lends Itself to This

The surfbar has to stay visible in the foreground – only a visit that is actually on a screen is remunerated. On your work computer it therefore constantly competes with everything else: at the first video call you push it aside or close it, and the session is interrupted.

A second device does not have this problem. It brings its own screen along, on which the surfbar can stay put without getting in your way. That is exactly what hardware that is otherwise doing nothing is good for.

Then there is the arithmetic of selling: a notebook with eight years on the clock fetches little on the second-hand market, and postage, packaging and the time for wiping data, taking photos and writing the listing come off that. A device that stays in use instead brings in a small amount every month – and it only has to be set up once.

Which Device Is Suitable for What?

It does not take much: access to the internet, an operating system that still receives updates, and an up-to-date browser. A fast processor or plenty of memory play no role. The actual difference between the devices is their appetite for electricity in continuous operation – here are four typical second devices, relative to one another:

• Old smartphone – around 3 watts and therefore the most economical long-runner. Runs on the charging cable over WLAN.
• Tablet – around 7 watts. Behaves like the phone, only with a larger screen.
• Old notebook – around 30 watts. Screen and power supply are conveniently already included, but running it costs noticeably more.
• Old desktop PC – around 80 watts. As a pure long-runner it is generally not worth it.

On a phone, mobile Firefox is the better choice, because mobile Chrome does not allow extensions. How to set up a smartphone step by step is described under earning money with your phone. And connect the device permanently to the WLAN instead of letting it run over the mobile network – otherwise it will eat up your data allowance.

A Separate Surflink per Device

You open the surfbar via a surflink – an address of its own that leads directly into the surfbar. You can create as many of these as you like, and there is no limit on the points that accumulate through them.

For the second-device case that is practical: create a separate surflink for each device and name it accordingly – "Notebook-living-room", "Phone-kitchen". Every link has its own statistics. That way you can see in black and white what the old notebook brings in and what the phone brings in. Important here: one account per person – the surflinks all sit underneath it.

A surflink also works without an account of their own on the other side: anyone who surfs via your link does not have to register with eBesucher. So the tablet that sits at your parents' place can run via your surflink – and the points land in your account. How far this can be expanded is described in the article Earn more with surflinks.

Set Up in a Quarter of an Hour

So That It Keeps Running Without You Following Up

A long-runner is only a long-runner if it comes back up on its own after every power cut and every update. Four settings take care of that:

• The screen must not switch off. Under Windows, in the power options set "Turn off the display" and "Sleep" to Never. Under Android, set the display timeout to the highest value and, if available, Stay awake while charging in the developer options. On an iPad the setting is under Display & Brightness as Auto-Lock: Never.
• Log in automatically. If a password field is waiting after a power cut, the device stands idle until someone goes over to it. On a second device without personal data, automatic login therefore makes sense.
• Open the surfbar at startup. Enter the surflink as the home page and let the browser start with the system. On Windows the eBesucher addon takes care of this for you, and the Restarter additionally brings the surfbar back if it hangs.
• Put updates into a time window. Windows likes to restart for updates without asking. Set the active hours so that this happens at night – then the device comes back up while you sleep, instead of in the middle of the day.

What else you can adjust so that more pages are shown to you – cookies, IP address, language setting, screen resolution – is described in the surfbar optimisation.

Battery, Heat and Safety in Continuous Operation

This point tends to get overlooked, and it is the most important one in the whole article: old lithium-ion batteries do not like being charged continuously. They age faster if they are constantly held at 100%, and an aged battery can swell up. A swollen case, a display that is bulging, or a touchpad that suddenly sits proud are the signal to take the device off the mains immediately.

On top of that, the homework for hardware that runs around the clock:

• Let air get to it. The device belongs on a hard, level surface – not on a sofa, bed or carpet, and not in a closed cupboard. Keep the ventilation slots clear.
• Get the dust out. A clogged fan is the most common cause of heat in old notebooks. Blow it out once before the device goes into continuous operation.
• Keep an eye on the temperature. If the case gets noticeably hot rather than hand-warm, something is wrong – turn the brightness down, check the fan, and change the device if necessary.
• A smoke detector in the room. A matter of course for any room in which technology runs unattended.
• Dispose of defective batteries properly. A swollen battery does not belong in household waste, and it must not be pierced or bent open. Retailers and recycling centres take it back.

What the Device Can Take on Alongside

A second device does not have to do only one thing. The restriction here is clear: the screen belongs to the surfbar, since it has to stay visible. Everything that runs in the background works anyway – and makes the power consumption more worthwhile at the same time:

• Storage on the home network. A shared folder on the old notebook is a simple place for photos and documents that all the devices on the WLAN can access.
• A target for backups. The same share takes the automatic backups of the other computers. A backup that sits on a device that is switched on runs without anyone having to plug in a drive.
• A printer on the network. An old USB printer without a network connection becomes reachable for everyone in the household via the always-on device.
• Music to the stereo. The amplifier or an active speaker hangs on the headphone output, and playback keeps running in the background.

What does not work, by contrast: anything that needs the screen for itself – a digital picture frame, a weather display, a smart home dashboard. That is mutually exclusive with the surfbar.

Sustainability: Every Further Year Counts

The largest part of a device's environmental impact does not arise during operation, but during manufacture – in raw material extraction, chip production and transport. The Öko-Institut puts the manufacture of a notebook at around 250 kilograms of CO₂, and that of a smartphone at around 100 kilograms; the figures vary depending on the study and the device.

This quantity has been spent as soon as the device is built. It cannot be recovered – but it is spread over more years the longer the device stays in use. Every additional year of use also postpones the new purchase and keeps the device out of electronic waste, where materials of value are at best only partly recovered.

But it is only honest to add: this calculation tips over if the device draws too much electricity. An old desktop PC consuming around 80 watts around the clock is not an ecological gain – the power consumption eats up the advantage of the continued use. With a smartphone and a tablet, by contrast, the case is clear-cut.

What Comes Out of It – Honestly Calculated

A second device does not replace a side job. What accumulates are small amounts that add up over weeks. How much it turns out to be depends on how long the device runs and how sought-after your target group currently is among the advertisers – there is no single point value that would be the same for everyone. That is exactly why you want a separate surflink per device: that way you see the actual figures instead of guessing.

You can request a payout from a value of 2.00 euros, by PayPal or SEPA transfer. There is no payout fee, payouts run at least every seven days, and you can request as many as you like. In total, over one million euros has already been paid out to members.

On top of that there is a part that keeps running without any further effort: for friends you refer, you get 8% for life on their earnings – without anything being deducted from them. What that adds up to over months is shown in building passive income.

And When the Device Really Is at the End?

When the battery gives up, the system no longer receives updates or the device gets too hot in operation, that is the end. Then it belongs in the retailer's take-back scheme or at the recycling centre, not in household waste – retailers above a certain size take old devices back free of charge, and small ones even without a new purchase. Until then, though, it can happily work for a few more months. Our FAQ answers any open questions.

Good luck with putting it to further use!

Your eBesucher team

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