SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol employed to exchange encrypted information between a client and a hosting server, making it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any data. Many tech-savvy clients choose SSH mainly because of the higher security level. The connection is established and the commands are delivered via a command line. The offered options depend on the type of Internet hosting service - on a shared server, in particular, files can be relocated or deleted, databases can be imported and exported, and archives could be set up 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 may be installed 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 would be affected. Although SSH is used largely with UNIX-like Operating Systems, there are SSH clients for other OSs as well - Windows, Mac OS, and so forth.