SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol that's used to transfer encoded info between a client and a web server, making it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any data. Many tech-savvy users prefer SSH due to the higher security level. The connection is made and the commands are delivered through a command line. The offered options depend on the type of hosting service - on a shared server, in particular, files may be moved or deleted, databases may be imported and exported, and archives could be created or unpacked. On a virtual or a dedicated server, the options are significantly more - the web server and the database server may be started/stopped/rebooted, server-side software may be set up and more. These things are not possible on a shared server, because full root access is required and all the other customers on that server shall be affected. Even though SSH is employed mainly with UNIX-like OSs, there are SSH clients for other OSs as well - Windows, Mac OS, and so forth.