Fight COVID-19 (and other disease) With Your Computer
I recently stumbled upon folding@home and immediately made a video about it. For a long time I took part in the SETI@home (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project which was shut down in March of 2020. They had gathered all the data they needed and now had to begin sifting and analyzing. I randomly look at various other distributed computing projects to see where I can put my tech resources to good use.
When I came across folding@home and realized they were diverting their resources to COVID-19, I knew I needed to take part. I also felt that I needed to let people know about this. I have a good friend working in a hospital in Boston and I get weekly updates from him about what he is seeing. As he was also excited about folding@home, I gave him a call to have a discussion. The video can be found on my YouTube channel or in the Watch section of this website.
How to Install the Software on Your Computer
First you’ll need to head over to foldingathome.org and click on the Start Folding Now Button. You’ll hit the I am One in a Million page and I encourage you to browse and watch the testimonials.
Hit the Download Now button and then download the installer package for your operating system.
Once downloaded, double click the installer and install the fah (folding at home) client on your machine.
Once it runs the installation, it will pull up a webpage that looks like this.
https://client.foldingathome.org. Bookmark this webpage in your browser so you can access it at a later time. I have it pinned on my Chrome browser so that it is always available.
This is not a normal website, this is a client that can only be accessed if you are running the software on your computer. Basically, there is low-level software running in the background that takes advantage of your processors when you’re not using them.
You can choose what project you want to contribute to and give yourself an identity. If I get enough interest, I might start a team. You can also choose how much of your CPU you want to donate (light, medium or full) as well as when you want it to run. It can either kick in when you’re not using your computer or, if you want, it can kick on and use the parts of your processor(s) you are not using at that moment.
Hit the Big Green Start Folding Button, you can Stop Folding at any time.
You Can Make a Difference.
https://foldingathome.org