Desktop sharing is a common name for technologies and products that allow remote access and remote collaboration on a person's computer

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

through a graphical

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...

. The most common two scenarios for desktop sharing are: * Remote login * Real-time collaboration ''Remote log-in'' allows users to connect to their own desktop while being physically away from their computer. Systems that support the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

, typically Unix-based ones, have this ability "built in". Windows versions starting from Windows 2000 have a built-in solution for remote access as well in the form of

Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose, while t ...

and prior to that in the form of Microsoft’s

NetMeeting Microsoft NetMeeting is a discontinued VoIP and multi-point videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows (from Windows 95 OSR2 to Windows Vista). It uses the H.323 protocol for videoconferencing, and is interoperable w ...

Virtual Network Computing Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a graphical desktop-sharing system that uses the Remote Frame Buffer protocol (RFB) to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse input from one computer to another, relaying the g ...

(VNC) is a cross-platform solution accomplished through a common client/server model. The client, or VNC viewer, is installed on a local computer and then connects to the network via a server component, which is installed on a

remote computer In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server (comp ...

. In a typical VNC session, all keystrokes and mouse clicks are registered as if the client were actually performing tasks on the end-user machine.Virtual Network Computing (VNC): Making Remote Desktop Sharing Possible
Businessnewsdaily.com (2013-11-07). Retrieved on 2014-03-16. The shortcoming of the above solutions are their inability to work outside of a single

NAT Nat or NAT may refer to: Computing * Network address translation (NAT), in computer networking Organizations * National Actors Theatre, New York City, U.S. * National AIDS trust, a British charity * National Archives of Thailand * National As ...

environment. A number of commercial products overcome this restriction by tunneling the traffic through rendezvous servers. Apple machines require

Apple Remote Desktop Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) is a Macintosh application produced by Apple Inc., first released on March 14, 2002, that replaced a similar product called ''Apple Network Assistant''. Aimed at computer administrators responsible for large numbers of ...

(ARD). ''Real-time collaboration'' is a bigger area of desktop sharing use and has gained momentum as an important component of rich multimedia communications. Desktop sharing, when used in conjunction with other components of multimedia communications such as audio and video, offers people to meet and work together. On the larger scale, this area is also referred as

web conferencing Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-le ...

. With a larger number of applications moving from desktop machines to

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

, newer forms of browser based instant screen sharing have developed such as

Cobrowsing Cobrowsing (short for collaborative browsing), in the context of web browsing, is the joint navigation through the World Wide Web by two or more people accessing the same web page at the same time. History of cobrowsing software Early cobrowsing w ...

Comparison of notable desktop sharing software

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desktop Sharing Collaboration Remote desktop

Comparison of notable desktop sharing software

See also

References