PurpleNova redefines webhosting…turns your PC into a super easy webserver
The title for this post may seem an inflated sales pitch, but this is exactly what Purplenova does. I downloaded the installer; it took me a couple of minutes to complete the setup and another couple to drap & drop my files into the folder and get the URLs. The files were now accessible from any browser on the internet using those URLs. As easy as that. PurpleNova is a product from Infinishare, a software company based in Silicon Valley & Pune.
Purplenova is a desktop product that allows you to host files, websites and webservices directly from your home PC that is running your regular copy of windows. Each hosted file gets a Unique Resource Locator (URL) which can be accessed from any internet browser. No other software or hardware of any sort is needed. All types of files can be hosted- MSOffice documents, audio files, images, webpages and even webservices. You control your hosting and people cannot access anything on your PC except what you have expressly shared. You can also run websites (or other third party applications) on Purplenova using traditional web servers such as IIS and Apache. The hosting computers could be behind firewalls, routers or NAT- no worries on that front. What’s more, you can also point your domain name to your computer through DNS.
Screen shot of file uploader and web interface
So what are the benefits of Purplenova? The content is accessible directly without any interactions with a webhost or a data-center; your hosting capacity is the capacity of your computer’s hard disk; hosted content can be private (accessible only through SSL) or public for free access like any website; FTP access is possible as well and search engines will index the publicly accessible content. If you wondering how this works, it’s actually quite simple- Purplenova simply acts as a ‘Reverse Proxy’ to your web-application or web-service, making it accessible from the Internet.
Purplenova looks a very useful product. Conceptually, it does not threaten to make web hosting redundant. Rather its advantage lies in its convenience & simplicity as compared to web hosting. I can think of quite a few situations where something like Purplenova would make more sense than full fledged web hosting. One obvious disadvantage though is the fact that the files will be accessible only while the hosting PC is switched on.
The basic version is free while there are paid versions with additional features. The company plans to partner with domain name providers, web hosting companies & ISPs who will pass on this service to their consumers for a small fee. Purplenova plans to target individuals & small businesses. It believes that while mission-critical stuff may not be put on Purplenova, there is lots of user-generated content, photos, albums, podcasts, media, playlists, documents, websites, etc that individual users may want to host for limited circulation.
