What is a bot?

More recently, the word "bot" in most people, regardless of how close they are to the Internet, was associated with "shoes", so to speak, a shortened form. Today, perhaps every user of the Network came across them. Many already know what they are dealing with, others - they saw, but had no idea what kind of animal it was. So, what is a bot?

"Bot" is an abbreviation for the word "robot", a special program whose function is to imitate the actions of a living person. Algorithms are executed automatically by bots, or at regular intervals, but always with the same interfaces that a normal user uses.

Most often such a program is created to perform monotonous and repetitive operations, alternating with each other at high speed. As a rule, such actions are simply not available to an ordinary person (bored, boring, long, etc.). In such situations robots come to the rescue. In addition, working on a given algorithm, the bots do not get off course, adhering to clearly laid down rules. From a living person this is achieved, again, not easy.

More famous robot programs were purchased on the Internet. There are a lot of them.

1. Bots in computer games are popular and even very useful. Players during the passage of missions, in skirmishes, etc. Often do not realize that they are fighting almost with artificial intelligence. Here, such programs are carefully adjusted to the actions of gamers, to give the game process a sharp edge. If the bot is executed qualitatively, can "think" and act, focusing on the situation occurring on the screen, it becomes much more interesting to play.
2. ICQ bot. Here, by default, we classify bots from other programs for communication. What is a bot in Internet messengers (icq, Skype, QIP, etc.)? The variety of such robots is large enough. There are both very useful programs, and typical bots - clogging the contact list and interfering with their intrusiveness. The first include various services, ready to provide free jokes, weather forecasts, as well as show the program schedule for today, translate the text from one language to another and so on. It all depends on the capabilities of the program. To obtain information, it is enough to write a specific query in the window of such a "user" to get the coveted information. As a rule, the list of requests and their description is presented in the bots themselves. Find numbers "asek" can be on the Internet, most often, they are freely available. Let's move on to a group of annoying bots or so-called spam bots. Despite the serious anti-spam and anti-flood control, the presence of "test" questions, tricky programs in some way through them make their way. Basically, harmful robots send various suggestions (often of an intimate nature), the essence of which is to buy something. In addition, users who have only a superficial idea of what a bot is, are faced with the types of bots offering to "follow the link and see the photo." Naturally, on the other side of the link - a virus or a program that can harm the computer or information ownership of the user.
3. Bots-buyers. A conditionally named category of programs that participates in the purchase of the best places for concerts, sports and entertainment events, flights, etc. In general, places that are very popular. The main customers of such bots are intermediary companies. Having reserved all the best places on official sales sites, they offer them on their web resources at higher prices.
4. Another kind of robots is a web bot. Their main task is to predict and predict changes in the stock market. Developed in the far 90-ies of the last century, it is popular until now.

The answer to the question "what is a bot" is very diverse, because robots are a huge number. Some of them are useful, others are not. However, they are not to be feared, because the human mind can always cope with the semi-artificial.