SuperDonate Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

SuperDonate is a small program that runs on your computer. While SuperDonate is running, you will automatically be donating to the charity that you have selected. You will also be helping organizations solve big scientific, mathematical or medical problems. Finally, you will be helping reduce energy waste and pollution.

SuperDonate is completely free. You'll never have to pay for anything.

There are organizations that need lots of computing power to solve enormous computational problems. Rather than buying and maintaining many computers to do this, they can use a distributed computing service to solve their problem. This lets them tackle issues that they otherwise wouldn't have the computing power to solve. Your computer will help organizations solve these computational problems.

Organizations are willing to pay money for access to this distributed computing service. When an organization uses this system, they pay a certain amount of money in exchange for the CPU processing power they get in return. This money is then what goes towards the charities. SuperDonate will give at least 80% of the money generated by your computer to the charity that you have selected. The rest of the money will go towards maintaining and supporting SuperDonate.

Distributed computing networks have already been used to help solve many real-world problems. Some examples include: AIDS and cancer research, pharmaceutical drug discovery, economic forecasting, web indexing and clean energy research.

Some more examples of possible projects that could benefit from SuperDonate are here and here.

Using a distributed computing service such as SuperDonate is good for the environment. Very large data centers are being built every day for computing needs. Not only are these data centers expensive and inefficient, but they're also a significant source of energy waste and pollution. The New York Times reported in May 2008 that "data centers will surpass the airline industry as a greenhouse gas polluter by 2020." By letting idle computers do the work instead, these wasteful data centers do not need to be built.

SuperDonate does not need to use advertisements, popups or spyware to earn money for charity. Everything is earned by exchanging CPU processing power for money for charity.

First, download and install the SuperDonate program by clicking on the Download button on this website.

When SuperDonate is running, select the charity you want to donate to by clicking the Options button. From there you can learn about and select the charity you wish to donate to. Then click OK and you're done! The program will now automatically donate to your selected charity for as long as it's running.

You won't even know that it's running! SuperDonate only uses your CPU resources when your computer is idle (no keyboard or mouse activity for 1 minute).

For example, when you leave for lunch, SuperDonate will automatically start working. When you get back, SuperDonate will instantly give back all of your CPU resources. If needed, you can easily pause SuperDonate when performing a CPU intensive task.

SuperDonate uses the distributed computing network built by Plura Processing to earn money in exchange for CPU processing power. Amazon has a similar service called EC2 that some companies are also using. Click here for more information about the Plura computing network.

When you run SuperDonate, you can choose what charity to donate to by pressing the Options button. From here you can learn about the different charities that SuperDonate supports.

It's 100% safe. The distributed computing system runs in a secure Java sandbox that has no access to your files. Java was built from the ground up to protect your personal information and files. SuperDonate does not install anything else on your computer - no spyware, no adware.

If you are a registered 501(c)(3) charity and would like to be included in SuperDonate, please contact us for more information.

Yes! Feel free to install SuperDonate on any computer.

Yes! If you are a programmer, there is a free Java library available that you can add to your projects to donate to charity when people use your program. Donations made by your program will appear in the stats page. Basic SuperDonate functionality can be added in just one line of code, but it can also be customized to fit your needs. Please use the contact page to request the library.

Please feel free to contact us using the contact page.