Distributed Computing on an Ensemble of Browsers

Given the ubiquity of Web browsers and the performance gains being achieved by javaScript virtual machines, a question arises: Could Internet browsers become yet another middleware for distributed computing? With 2 billion users online, computing through Internet browsers could amass immense resources and transform the Internet into a distributed computer ideal for common classes of distributed scientific applications such as parametric studies. The proposed WeevilScout prototype framework builds on this idea, and offers results from a proof-of-concept cluster of globally distributed Internet browsers that computed thousands of bio-informatics tasks.