BOINC allows people to give a certain percentage of their computer’s resources to different causes, which the person selects. This saves these projects from having to buy a supercomputer, as small parts of what has to be processed are sent to thousands of computers which process them. This software is available for Windows, Linux and OS X.

About 25 projects utilise BOINC, ranging from projects which find prime numbers, the future of our planet’s climate, aliens (the famous SETI@Home project) and even proteins which could fight diseases like HIV.

After BOINC is installed, the user must associate themselves with the projects and create an account there. Each project with which a user registers records all of that user’s activities and places them in a league table for the amount they’ve processed. Users can associate multiple computers to an account and join groups, whose combined activities place them in a league.

BOINC allows users to choose the proportion of resources dedicated to certain projects and ensures more powerful computers get more credit than less powerful, slower ones.

Certain projects have attractive visualisations too, which depict the information being processed. SETI’s can be used as a screensaver, which shows which parts of the radio telescope’s data is being analysed.

Some problems with BOINC are its power consumption, which can deteriorate a laptop’s battery, and that it makes computers hotter and consequently noisier. The GUI is also quite confusing!

UK

In the UK, Everyclick is a website which provides an Ask-based search engine which donates much of its revenue to a charity of your choice (so the more you search, the more they donate) and also provides an online shop with links to most major retailers, with a commission being donated. Nearly any registered charity can sign up for this service.

ClickNow styles itself as ‘the community search engine’ and provides portals for over 200 of British charities. These portals also include an Ask-powered search engine, ‘shopping malls’ (with commission going to charity) and a travel agency, where 5% of the cost of the holiday goes to charity. However, this site does not seem as good as Everyclick as each charity has its own distinct portal and the site’s design is not attractive.

US

Windows Live provides Americans with a search engine, Search and Give, which contributes to nearly any American charity or school, which the user desires. The site is very clean and simple compared to many charity search engines and is not plastered with advetisements. Windows Live Messenger’s ‘i’m’ initiative is another way, where if a certain emoticon is used in IMs, money will go to charity.

GoodSearch is another option for Americans, which seems to be very similar to Everyclick but is powered by Yahoo!. GoodSearch also provides an option to shop online ad let charities collect a commission.

Europe

VeoSearch is a charity search engine with a European focus, earning money for British, French, Belgian, German and Swiss charities, which are involved with social work, environment protection or sustainable economics. The search engine is available in French, German and English.

US, Europe and Japan

Effortless Good is a Firefox extension which donates a percentage of any purchases made on Amazon US, UK, Canada, France, Germany or Japan. This runs completely in the background!

Most of these tools take a cut for themselves, either for profit or for development, and this is worth investigating before using. Registration is also usually required, so it is known which charities are being supported.

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