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As an ever-increasing proportion of the world’s data moves into the cloud through software as a service (SaaS) offerings such as Google Docs, concerns are widespread about the corresponding loss of user control over that data. German Unhosted, however, offers a new, serverless alternative. “Whenever you ‘go online,’ your computer is communicating over the internet with one or more servers, which produce the things you see as websites,” Unhosted explains. “Unfortunately, most servers are controlled by powerful companies like Google, Facebook and Apple, and these companies have full control over most things that happen online.” The solution, in the company’s view, is to move the application out of the server and into the browser, leaving data within users’ control. Billing itself as “freedom from web 2.0’s monopoly platforms,” Unhosted aims essentially to decouple applications and data in the cloud. Rather than an opaque user interface, then, users’ PCs receive just the app’s source code over http. By moving application features out of the personal server and into the client side, meanwhile, the actual personal server “becomes very simple,” the company explains. “It is basically reduced to a gateway that can broker connections between unhosted Web apps and the outside world.” Users, meanwhile, can choose for themselves which personal server they run and where their data is stored. The video below explains the premise in more detail: The battle for control over desktop software has been fought for more than a decade already, but control over the cloud has just begun. Tech-minded entrepreneurs: time to get involved? Spotted by: Alexia M