Based on the way you want to communicate with a client, you need to choose which of these options you want to include in your service. However, in addition to the technological characteristics and differences listed here, the final decision should be guided by whether the primary purpose of the service is customer support or technical support for problem solving (technical support).

When writing technical texts in the Serbian language, there is always a dilemma of whether to use original terms, mainly in English, or to use the appropriate ones in the mother tongue. The recommendations are clear: it is always better to use the appropriate terms in Serbian. What if such, appropriate expressions do not exist, as is the case with co-browse and screen share? Does that mean that this feature is not used often, is not useful, or that we are simply not familiar with it? Do you know what is co-browse and what is screen share?

Both of them are seemingly similar ways of communication that can be described as allowing someone else to see what is on our computer at a given moment. However, although at first glance they are the same, these are different functionalities requiring different approaches in realization and usage. The main features are:

Through the screen share session, in addition to already established communication, we allow someone else, usually someone from technical support, to see what is on our monitor/screen or in the application we are currently using. Most of us will easily associate this with the use of VNC or TeamViewer software, which make possible to see what’s happening on another computer without the need to “sit” in front of it. This way, someone else has been enabled to see the complete content of our screen and help us to solve the problem we have.

Through a co-browse session, we allow someone else to see the same page in the web browser or the relevant web application, which we are currently in, without accessing other applications or operating system controls. This way, the end-user can be shown how to fill in an electronic payment order or how to make a purchase, guiding him through the proper order of the steps without direct input of data or execution of the payment itself.

The basic difference between these two terms is following: while the screen share session allows the sharing of web pages, special applications and the complete operating system interface, co-browsing enables only sharing of the web page in the browser. On the other hand, co-browse allows us to hide sensitive content on the pages we are sharing so that it is visible only to us (for example, the card number or the amount of payment) or to limit the access to certain controls on the pages we are sharing so that a payment confirmation can only be made by the user, not the one with whom we share a co-browse session. Due to the different nature of the data shared through the session, the technical requirements from network are considerably higher for screen share sessions, especially if it is done in higher resolution when video content is exchanged between the two sides. With co-browsesession mainly textual content and information are exchanged and only when a change occurs. The latest solutions for screen share sessions use WebRTC as technology to share the content of the screen so that it can be utilized through compatible browsers such as Google Chrome or Firefox.

Similar to the applications I have already mentioned (VNC, TeamViewer) screen share sessions can be run from special desktop applications, if such an approach is necessary, by using Chromium Embedded Framework. On the other hand, co-browse is based on Web Socket technology. Relying on the DOM (Document Object Model) during a co-browse session, information is used to create a web page on the agent side identical to the one on which we are. Any changes, such as clicking or inputting the appropriate data are sent in real time. This architecture provides a high level of security because if we define the fields and controls that someone else cannot see that information does not go beyond the user’s browser.

Based on the way you want to communicate with a client, you need to choose which of these options you want to include in your service. However, in addition to the technological characteristics and differences listed here, the final decision should be guided by whether the primary purpose of the service is customer support or technical support for problem solving (technical support).

About similarities and differences of these two approaches in one of the next blog posts.

Talent wins games, but team work and intelligence win championships. – Michael Jordan