Why does Gomez need PEERs?
We've all come to depend on the Internet, whether for news and information, shopping, stock trading or even critical business transactions. Unfortunately, we've also come to expect delays, slow pages, sites that grind to a halt, and even important transactions that don't execute.
Now there's a way for you to help make a difference in the performance of the Internet — using the otherwise unused capacity of your PC. And, earn cash in the process!
Using the combined computing horsepower of thousands of PCs around the world, Gomez can measure, for the first time, the real-world performance of Web sites — from the end-user's perspective. The data collected by you will be used by Gomez's customers to improve the performance of their Web sites — eventually improving the online experience for us all.
Right now, Gomez is looking for users from all over the world with different Internet connection types, including dial-up and broadband users.
It just takes a few minutes to join the community and become a Gomez PEER.
What exactly is the "PEER"?
The Gomez PEER is a secure, Java-based application that runs in the background of your PC. You may even forget it's there, because it will not disrupt the way you use your computer.
Using advanced, peer-to-peer distributed computing technology, the Gomez PEER combines the spare capacity of PCs around the world to measure the performance of Web sites. After you install the Gomez PEER, it will periodically communicate with Gomez servers via the Internet, signal that it's available for work, and request a work unit. And you will be credited for your online time and work processed approximately every 15 minutes that the application is running.
Based on your computer's characteristics (Internet connection type, geographic location and Internet service provider), your PC will receive instructions to autonomously test the performance of Web sites — gathering important metrics that help identify network bottlenecks and performance problems. All of this happens "behind the scenes," even when you're away from your PC or asleep. Finally, your PC will send its results back to Gomez, where they are added to the work of thousands of other PCs around the world.
The Gomez PEER is available for Windows 2000/NT/XP/2003.
