PeerFactor

http://www.peerfactor.fr/us/index.shtml

PeerFactor is a distributed computing and peer-to-peer file-sharing project. It uses its participants spare bandwidth and CPU cycles, and rewards the participants with game and music downloads. Participants receive credit for the results of the file-sharing and computing that their PeerFactor client completes, rather than the amount of time they make their computer available, so anyone, including modem-users, can participate. Participants will be able to redeem their credits for free downloads from commercial game and music download services. For now participation is only open to French citizens. An English version of the client will be available in late 2006, and participation will open to citizens of all countries when that version is available.

The project currently runs the following applications: peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of legal promotional content (see some examples); improvement of search engine performance. In the future it will include other applications: benchmarking and monitoring of websites; distributed computing; rendering graphics; weather-related computing.

To participate in the project, download and run PeerFactor.exe. The PeerFactor client is currently only available for Windows. A Linux version should be available soon. The client is not configurable, to make it easier to use. The client runs at idle priority. The client can be used behind a firewall, but the firewall should authorize PeerFactor to use the maimum possible number of ports. The client currently only uses about 5% of available CPU to crawl and index websites for commercial search engines.



http://www.rechenkraft.net/wiki/index.php?title=PeerFactor