SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol used to transfer encrypted information between a client and a web server, which makes it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any info. Many tech-savvy users favor SSH mainly because of the better level of security. The connection is established and the commands are delivered using a command line. The offered options depend on the type of web hosting service - on a shared server, for example, files could be relocated or deleted, databases may be imported and exported, and archives can be set up or unpacked. On a virtual or a dedicated server, your choices are significantly 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, due to the fact that full root access is required and all the other customers on that server would be affected. While SSH is employed predominantly with UNIX-like OSs, there are SSH clients for other OSs as well - Windows, Mac OS, etc.