Xssproxy implements the org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver D-Bus interface described in the Idle Inhibition Service Draft by the freedesktop.org developers. The inhibition of the screensaver is then controlled using the XScreenSaverSuspend function from the Xss (X11 Screen Saver extension) library.

This package is useful when using a lightweight window manager with the X built-in screensaver. For example Firefox uses the org.freedesktop.ScreenSave D-Bus interface to disable the screensaver when playing videos. This package implements that interface and disables the X built-in screensaver in that case. A possible use case is to install this package with the xmonad window manager and the display locker tools xssstate and slock included in the suckless-tools package. All the major full-featured desktop environments like GNOME come with a built-in implementation of the beforementioned D-Bus interface and thus make no sense to be used with this package.