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The most common bots are web agents that interface with web pages. Web crawlers or spiders are web robots that recursively gather web-page information, such as the bot used by Google. They may also be used to interact dynamically with a site in a particular way, for example to exploit or locate arbitrage opportunities for financial gain.

Some bots communicate with other users of Internet based services, for example via IM or IRC, or another web interface. These chatterbots may allow people to ask questions in plain English and then formulate a proper response. These bots can often handle many tasks including reporting weather, zip code information, sports scores, converting currency or other units, and much more.

An additional role of IRC-bots may be to lurk in the background of a conversation channel, commenting on certain phrases uttered by the participants (based on pattern matching). This is sometimes used as a help service for new users, or even for mild censorship (e.g., bad language).

There has been a great deal of controversy about the use of bots in an automated trading function. eBay has been to court in an attempt to suppress a third party company from using bots to traverse their site looking for bargains; this approach backfired on eBay and attracted the attentions of further bots. The UK based bet exchangeA bet exchange or p2p (player to player) exchange is a fairly recent Internet phenomenon, and is used to describe a web site acting as a broker between parties for the placement of bets ( gambling, in other words). The concept is similar to that of a stoc BetfairBetfair is a United Kingdom based Internet bet exchange. Betfair was launched in June 2000 and is the largest online betting company in the UK, with over 100,000 clients and a turnover in excess of £50m/week. The exchange allows punters ( gamblers) to bac believe they have also experienced some difficulties with bots on their site but are taking a more "hands off" approach in the light of the eBay experience.

The term bot is used frequently in videogames, referring to computer controlled enemies in a multiplayerMultiplayer is a mode of play for a video game or computer game in which multiple people can play the same game at the same time. Unlike most other games, computer and video games are often single-player activities because the computing power exists to cr game that simulate the actions of a human player. These bots are used in trainingTraining refers traditionally and meaningfully to what many folk now grandiloquently term professional development. Educational training tends to the vocational or practical and relates to specific useful skills. It forms the core of apprenticeships and p, before playing over Internet, or simply to maximise the experience when there are not enough players in the game. In some multiplayer computer gameA computer game is any sort of game that is played using a computer. General Although often associated, computer games are not necessarily video games although all but the earliest video games (such as Pong, which used dedicated analogue circuitry) are cos (often MMORPGWorld of Warcraft are gathering for a raid. A massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internets and MUDs), a bot is software that automates simple in-game tasks. Most bots in this sense are configured to repeat an action continually in order to improve the player character's abilities. A related example in first-person shooter games is the aimbot.

Another more malicious use for bots is the coordination and operation of an automated attack on networked computers, such as a distributed denial-of-service attack.