The ultimate guide to co-browsing
This guide will explain co-browsing technology, its benefits and limitations compared to screen sharing, and the things to consider when picking your next co-browsing software solution.
Download the free guide to discover:
- The differences between co-browsing and screen sharing
- What the three types of co-browsing are
- Whether co-browsing is safe
- The benefits of co-browsing software
What is co-browsing?
Co-browsing, also known as collaborative browsing or co-browsing technology, allows users to navigate and interact with a web page together in real time.
It enhances customer interactions, enabling you to seamlessly guide customers through sales or support journeys.
How does co-browsing software work?
Co-browsing software works by sharing only what is in your browser tab, taking all the HTML content that makes up the web page you want to share, sending it to the participant, and recreating the page on their end.
Since this data is text-based, it requires less bandwidth than screen sharing. That means it’s faster and less resource-intensive.
Is co-browsing safe?
Yes, co-browsing is the safest way to browse together as the interaction only occurs in a single browser tab and participants can never gain access to any other part of your device.
Surfly co-browsing takes it one step further as we let users hide sensitive information, use audit logs, and don’t require potentially dangerous third-party software installations.
Screen sharing is not safe. It shares your entire desktop by streaming the pixels that make up your screen – potentially leaking sensitive or private data.
Co-browsing technology
vs screen sharing
Surfly enables you to cobrowse any type of content across the entire web or any digital property. Whether it’s your own site or a 3rd party site, and includes video, iframes, or any other type of content, it can all take place within a Surfly co-browsing session.
Frequently asked questions
We’ve compiled answers to the most frequently asked questions about our universal co-browsing technology below.
Enhancing a website with new features is achieved by altering code somewhere. Normally, this can only be done in one of two places; your website (by embedding code) or your browser (by installing plugins).
What makes Surfly different is that we create a third space. Our servers sit between the browser and the web page server. The core of Surfly's capability comes from this design, which we call "Interaction Middleware".
Done in this way, Surfly allows you to modify, audit, control and share anything you like without having to worry about the set up of individual browser types or lasting changes to your — or even someone else's — website.
Pixel based co-bowsing, or screen sharing, is essentially a video stream and therefore suffers all the latency problems that come with it. Video is also fixed - you can't change anything as it's streamed. Surfly shares web content - not pixels.
Surfly's univeral co-browsing is lightweight and rendered locally by each participant, giving a faster experience with way more control and countless of possibilities for creating collaborative journeys.
Yes! Surfly is designed with integration in mind. We offer a range of options that will empower you to create exactly what you need. Find out more on the integrations overview page.
Still have questions?
Our team of universal co-browsing experts is happy to answer any questions you might still have.