it's called distributed computing and it's very legit, scientists use it because there aren't enough super computers for everyone's projects due to the high cost. everything is encrypted, and your results are compared to other peoples to make sure the data is accurate.
You can set up how much CPU power you want your computer to use for it, or run it only when you aren't using your computer like a screensaver.
The client I used also allowed you to automatically stop processing data as soon as you started using your processor heavily for another task.
I hope this client is more accessible than world community grid, that's the one I was trying before. it was really cool to see the numbers going up and to no I was making a small difference, and it was even somewhat accessible…
But to really customize it to what I wanted was quite difficult, and it stopped working after a while.

That's nearly the same as saying you should not use office, because hackers use that suite to write their reports and todo lists, and when you press the "save" button, do you really know what happens? Yes, your document is stored on the spot where you want, but is that "really" all that happens?

@4-5, no, its not. The ratio for distributed computing is, in the mainstream average everyday market, far wider with malware/botnets or companies that aren't transparent at all (e.g.: companies that "pay" you for distributed computing). I'm not saying I distrust this, nor am I saying its evil. What I'm saying is that I would perfectly understand why someone would be hesitant to adopt this.

Thank you for sharing this! It is a shame so many people are automatically distrustful, but hopefully, at least a few will decide to help out.
You can find even more scientific research to contribute to on BOINC, an open source platform designed specifically for such jobs, which you can find here:
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/
You can choose which research you want to help out with yourself, or, if you don't feel like setting all that up, use Science United to just select which areas of science interest you the most (which is what I did).
https://scienceunited.org
If anyone decides to give the scientists a hand, thank you. You're awesome!

World community grid uses Boinc, which is fully accessible on both Windows and Linux with only minor fiddling (use simple view on Linux, and advanced on Windows). I can't speak for other projects, but essentially the premise behind WCG is that researchers are able to obtain computer power faster than they otherwise would (it runs about 500 years of computing a day), since traditional supercomputers have long wait times. You can find more information on their currently running projects at:
https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/rese … rojects.do
Currently the list includes climate research (predicting rainfall in Africa for farmers), two different cancer-related projects, a search for AIDS drugs, an examination of the human microbium, and a study of TB.

@Brad if you're curious about how it works, maybe this and this would help?
As for scientists having their own computers, no, not really. Supercomputers -- computers with enough processing power for these kinds of projects -- are very, very expensive. Most research teams simply cannot afford them. Meanwhile, there's a billion PCs in the world, most of which are not being used all the time. So they realized that all these computers that would normally just wait around while not being used could instead help out by completing tasks. In addition, being able to help out with scientific research will get more people interested in science, which is always a good thing.
For more reasons to why scientists don't just use their own computers, check out the last question on Folding At Home's FAQ.

@devinprater, that's not going to happen and you know it. Is it truly necessary to make up such conspiracies to make scientists seem like villains? Also, isn't helping someone out of the kindness of your heart, not for money, the exact opposite of capitalism?
And yes, it is accessible. Don't you think that if it wasn't, there wouldn't be all these VI people recommending it?

Hi there,
I can recommend Boinc as well. It's a nice program. Selecting a project is as easy as adding it from a list of available projects. Then you can track in real time, what kind of tasks is your computer currently processing. It downloads few from each project, some of them get the computing status, others wait until their time comes. After a task is finished, it is set to wait to be returned to the server. During the computing, you can see percentage of completion for each task, as well as get informations about the estimated remaining time required to finish it.
Plus there are various configuration options such as how many % of your computing power should be used in total, whether to pause computations when you use your cpu heavily, or whether to use gpu as well or not.

There are various kinds of available projects. During my time, my computer was solving for example the LHC project, aimed to help to renew Large Hadron Collider in cern, Enigma m4 project, which's goal was to crack three messages captured during WWII, which were said to be uncrackable, or Mind modelling project, which was created to simulate processes in human mind.

All of them are still running, although I don't really get what is m4 currently doing, as its goal was filled about 10 years ago if I remember right.

Best regards

Rastislav

Ok here is my explanation, as I understand this.
For example, trying to research the cure for cancer needs alot of computer power for calculations and what ever else and for sure, you can't do it with a single computer and super computers, the ones who can do this are super expensive, even for scientists.
So from all of our computers, they use the power to simulate a super computer and do this job.
Hope I am clear and I hope that I understood it correctly.

Hi.

I can't seam to open the program now I've restarted my computer, I've gone into the folder but if I press enter on BOINC.exe, it brings up a command line then closes, can anyone help?

I've tried pressing enter on the computing and network is enabled button but that doesn't seam to do anything.

Hi.

@defender, ok but how does the computer do the calculating when I don't have software to check those two peaces of data match in the different tables?

Oh and how do I get the program back? I can hear my fan but can't see the program on my screen after restarting my computer.

Hi.

@defender: thanks; I uninstalled it and am going to reinstal the program.

Are there any companies that pay enough for renting a cpu to compensate for the power loss? Helping science is good but power is expensive.