SETI@Home was born at UC Berkeley and released to the world on May 17th, 1999, using the university’s distributed computing platform, BOINC. Whenever people left their machine on, but weren’t using it, the program would take over and crunch data sent from UC Berkeley. In that way, the system created a giant, internet-connected supercomputer to grind through all of the information.
While SETI@Home is closing, UC Berkeley’s other astrophysics projects that use BOINC will still harness your computing time, if you’re offering. Or, if you’re looking for another good cause to support, you could always support Folding@Home, which is still in operation. That platform offers distributed computing for disease research, drug design and other medical research, which recently began tackling COVID-19.