  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.
