In a connected world, spare CPU cycles are up for grabs, if you only make its obtention easy enough. In this paper we present a distributed evolutionary computation system that uses the computational capabilities of the ubiquituous web browser. Using Asynchronous Javascript and JSON (Javascript Object Notation, a serialization protocol) allows anybody with a web browser (that is, mostly everybody connected to the Internet) to participate in a genetic algorithm experiment with little effort, or none at all. Since, in this case, computing becomes a social activity and is inherently impredictable, in this paper we will explore the performance of this kind of virtual computer by solving simple problems such as the Royal Road function and analyzing how many machines and evaluations it yields. We will also examine possible performance bottlenecks and how to solve them, and, finally, issue some advice on how to set up this kind of experiments to maximize turnout and, thus, performance.

翻译：在互联时代，闲置的CPU周期唾手可得，只需让获取方式足够便捷。本文介绍一种利用无处不在的Web浏览器计算能力的分布式进化计算系统。采用异步JavaScript与JSON（JavaScript对象表示法，一种序列化协议）技术，使得任何拥有Web浏览器（即几乎所有互联网用户）的用户都能以极少甚至零代价参与遗传算法实验。由于这种计算模式具有社交活动属性且本质不可预测，我们将通过求解皇道函数等简单问题，分析该虚拟计算机的性能表现，评估其可获取的机器数量与计算次数。同时探讨性能瓶颈及其解决方案，最终就如何配置此类实验以最大化参与率与性能提出建议。