Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for cooperatively and dynamically sharing a proxy's burden of scanning communications for target content. A network of computer nodes is connected to a firewall through which pass communications with entities external to the network. The firewall includes one or more proxies to facilitate network users' connections with the external entities. The firewall and one or more of the nodes include software modules for scanning one or more types (e.g., FTP, HTTP, SMTP) of communications for particular information or types of data (e.g., computer viruses, ActiveX components, pornography, text). A node having a software module for scanning a communication identifies its scanning capabilities to the firewall. The node may also suggest a class or set of communications that it may scan, which class or set may be defined by its operating parameters or attributes of communications received at the firewall for the node.

Abstract: A method for searching the Internet is provided that includes generating search criteria for an Internet search utilizing a first search agent that is resident on a first computer, distributing search tasks related to the Internet search to other search agents that are resident on their computers, utilizing the other search agents to perform the distributed search tasks, and then reporting the results of each search task back to the first search agent. In a preferred embodiment, the other search agents also retrieve the results of their distributed search tasks, so that the search results may be more easily accessed by the person that initiated the search. In an embodiment, the computers that host the search agents have connections to a common intranet and the search tasks are distributed only to search agents that have been identified as being available to support Internet searching.