ownCloud 9.0 is a Must-Have Upgrade for the Popular Cloud Platform

The extremely popular ownCloud open source file-sharing and storage platform for building private clouds has just reached some remarkable new milestones. You can move beyond what services such as Dropbox and Box offer by leveraging ownCloud, and you don't have to have your files sitting on servers that you don't choose, governed by people you don't know.

ownCloud, a completely open source file and storage platform that can let you run your own cloud, has arrived in version 9.0 The release comes with many improvements, including full federation, letting users on different servers share directories and files.

As the year began, ownCloud Inc. announced that is has achieved 100% year-over-year growth in 2015 with its open source platform, and is on track to double that growth again in 2016. "For 2016, ownCloud is already on track to double bookings to more than $16 million," the company reported. "Today, it has more than 300 customers across 47 countries, with downloads of the community and enterprise edition in 193 countries supporting more than 8 million users."

Softpedia has done a good report on one of ownCloud 9.0's new features, code signing, "which promises to offer users with a safer home for all their data by verifying the integrity of their ownCloud installations during upgrades or when installing apps, which also need to follow the new code signing specifications," according to the site.

You can also take a guided video tour to ownCloud 9 here. 

According to developers: "ownCloud is a self-hosted file sync and share server. It provides access to your data through a web interface, sync clients or WebDAV while providing a platform to view, sync and share across devices easily — all under your control. ownCloud’s open architecture is extensible via a simple but powerful API for applications and plugins and it works with any storage. Store your private pictures, documents, calendar and contacts on your ownCloud server at home, a rented VPS or use one of the public ownCloud providers. Access your existing data on an FTP drive at work, images shared with you on Dropbox, or your NAS at home--all through your ownCloud server."

As CIO notes: 

"Federation on ownCloud has been one of the most useful features for businesses and organizations alike, but until now there was one big limitation: Users needed to know the Federated Cloud Sharing ID (email address for file sharing) of another user to be able to send a sharing request. That meant that users needed to know the complete ownCloud email ID of everyone they wanted to share with. That changes in version 9.0."

 You can find many more answers to your questions on the Frequently Asked Questions page.