Prime95
| Prime95 | |
|---|---|
Prime95 icon in its "on" state | |
| Developer | George Woltman |
| Initial release | 3 January 1996 |
| Stable release | 30.19 build 20
/ June 2, 2024 |
| Preview release | 31.04 build 3
/ January 4, 2026 |
| Written in | ASM, C |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD |
| Type | Mersenne prime finder / system stability tester |
| License | Freeware |
| Website | mersenne |
Prime95, also distributed as the command-line utility mprime for FreeBSD, Linux, and MacOS is a freeware application written by George Woltman. It is the official client of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a volunteer computing project dedicated to searching for Mersenne primes. It is also used in overclocking to test for system stability.
Although most of its source code is available, Prime95 is not free and open-source software because its end-user license agreement states that if the software is used to find a prime qualifying for a bounty offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, then that bounty will be claimed and distributed by GIMPS.