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End: 2012-01

Unhosted

Unhosted, separating data servers from application servers

The web is not as open as it used to be: big monopoly platforms have formed new proprietary layers on top of it. This project breaks the "you get our app, we get your data" package deal. This by providing a cross-origin data storage protocol, thus separating data servers from application servers.

More and more applications are hosted online and force users to put their data onto servers where applications run. Apart from our data being locked inside a place we don't have control over, many websites sell the data to third parties. This is a huge emergency in terms of consumer rights. Unhosted improves the web infrastructure by separating web applications from your data:

  1. Your can store your data remotely anywhere, preferably encrypted;
  2. Unhosted apps, which are web applications, will run locally in your browser.

This also makes it easier for app developers, as they neither have to worry about hosting all the data and user accounts nor about server load - all the computing takes place in your own browser on your own machine. With the app being just JavaScript it becomes very easy to develop and deploy new apps which everyone can use.

The project will define a standard and submit it to W3C.