SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol used to exchange protected information between a client and a hosting server, making it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any information. Many tech-savvy customers choose SSH because of the better level of security. The connection is established and the commands are sent via a command line. The available options depend on the type of web hosting service - on a shared server, for example, files could be transferred or deleted, databases could be imported and exported, and archives can be created or unpacked. On a virtual or a dedicated server, your choices are a lot more - the web server and the database server may be started/stopped/rebooted, server-side software could be set up plus much more. These things are not possible on a shared server, since full root access is needed and all the other customers on that server shall be affected. Even though SSH is employed predominantly with UNIX-like OSs, there are SSH clients for other OSs too - Windows, Mac OS, and so forth.