Download the Folding@home software application
To join the Folding@home public distributed computing effort, simply click on a download link below appropriate for your computer's operating system. Review the notes for help in deciding what type of client to run and in choosing a user name if any (certain characters are reserved):
- How do I choose a username?
- What are the different types of clients?
List of available clients
Recommended software (based on information furnished by your browser)
| Operating system | Version # | Click to download | Installation instructions | License info (legal stuff) | MD5-sum |
| Windows | |||||
| Windows 2000/XP/Vista Graphical client | 5.03 | 
| 
| 
| a820f3db9363611ee6494b4c489a94cb |
| Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista text-only console (with built-in Windows-service-install option) | 5.04 |
|
|
| 51268b890d4e35437667ae6186640158 |
| Linux | |||||
| Linux (x86) and BSD *combined uniprocessor and SMP client* (64-bit required for SMP) | 6.02 full release | 
|
|
| 112b3d66909050f1bb990993a1464cb9 no expiration date |
| Macintosh | |||||
| Mac OS X (Intel) SMP OS X 10.4+ | 6.10 beta2 | 
|
|
| 3fe841c6f6972b6fdbbde8433374921e 2008-03-04, Expires 2008-08-02 |
| Mac OS X (Intel) SMP OS X 10.4+ | 6.02 release version *console only* |
|
|
| 69877148fe40621ecffcf222866b91da July 2, 2008, no expiration date |
| Mac OS X Graphical client (PPC) | 5.02 | 
|
|
| 58ed1cc5df0d7984312600247cacaea3 |
| Mac OS X (PPC) OS X 10.3+ | 6.01 Beta2 |
|
|
| bf5db7e6e349faf8302e434a6c0c9fda 2008-02-03, Expires 2008-08-02 |
| Mac OS X Screensaver (PPC) | 5.02 |
|
|
| 535bbba586e86e16bef7abc34e78faa0 |
| Mac OS X Text console (PPC) | 5.02 |
|
|
| b322a18b95c227f49ee38c4623d1c488 |
| PLAYSTATION3 | |||||
| Playstation 3 | 1.3.1 | 
|
|
| N/A |
- How do I choose a username?
- What are the different types of clients?
How do I choose a username?
To check if a name is already being used, use this search tool.
Type your name above (where it says "YourName") to see if that user name is already being used. You can also choose not to have a username and just donate your CPU time anonymously (user name = anonymous).
You can choose any name you like, as long as it contains only letters or numbers (to insert a space, you can use the underscore "_" character). If you choose your email address as your username, we will NOT print your full email address. Instead, just the part before the @ sign will be used in any stats listing, etc.
What are the different types of clients?
The Console client runs in the background and is launched from a terminal window (command line i.e. DOS window), to which they output text messages about the simulation's progress. The graphical clients (former GUI or current System Tray) run in the background and has a graphics window interface that allows you to see the protein being simulated. The v4.x Screensaver client runs like other screensavers, except that it also runs our calculation in the background. However, a separate Screensaver version is being phased out, and that feature has been rolled in to the graphical clients. High Performance and Beta clients are detailed at the bottom of this page.
High Performance clients. In addition to the clients that run in the background on typical computers, we also offer high performance clients, such as the GPU, SMP, and PS3 clients. These clients use more system resources, but are also much more productive. Please consider the use of these clients carefully. See the respective GPU, GPU2, SMP, and PS3 FAQs for more information.
Beta clients. We often release clients early for donors to beta test. These beta versions likely have some rough edges, but we expect that they should work reasonably well for all donors. See the respective installation instructions for more details of known bugs for each of the beta versions.
As in the use of any beta software, please make sure to back up your hard drive before installing. DO NOT not run a beta client if you or your machines cannot tolerate even the slightest instability or problems. Beta clients and servers performance may vary significantly from standard FAH clients during the development process, including but not limited to work unit shortages, server downtime for upgrades, and Points Per Day that differs a little or a lot from the developmental benchmark level.
For expert Folding@home donors interested in running beta version client software for Windows, please go to our High Performance Windows Clients page.
For More Information, Please See:
Last Updated on July 17, 2008, at 06:42 PM