SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol which is used to exchange encrypted information between a client and a website hosting server, which makes it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any info. Many tech-savvy clients opt for SSH due to the improved level of security. The connection is established and the commands are delivered through a command line. The available options depend on the type of web hosting service - on a shared server, for example, files can be transferred or deleted, databases can be imported and exported, and archives could be set up or unpacked. On a virtual or a dedicated server, the choices are considerably more - the web server and the database server can be started/stopped/rebooted, server-side software could be set up and much more. These things are not possible on a shared server, because full root access is needed and all the other customers on that server will be affected. While SSH is used predominantly with UNIX-like Operating Systems, there are SSH clients for other OSs too - Windows, Mac OS, and so on.