ConchshellYou have outgrown a terminal that lives in a browser tab
You did not install Secure Shell by mistake. It is genuine OpenSSH compiled to WebAssembly, it is free forever, it needs no account, and on a Chromebook or a locked-down laptop nothing else comes close. This page is for the day that stops being enough: the file that will not move itself with get and put, the FTPS box in the corner that still needs a client, the Windows host that wants a desktop rather than a shell, and the third shortcut in a row swallowed by Chrome. Conchshell is a native window that holds all four. Secure Shell details here were read on 20 August 2026 from its Chrome Web Store listing and the project's own documentation.
The walls people hit
There is no graphical file manager on your desktop. SFTP is bundled, and it is a command line inside the terminal: get, put, mget, mput, reget to resume, tab completion, progress bars. The graphical route the store describes is a ChromeOS Files-app mount, which does not exist on Windows, macOS or Linux.
There is no FTP or FTPS in it at all, and no remote desktop of any kind, so a Windows host means a second application either way. There is no host monitoring and no log viewer: the whole surface is a terminal, an sftp prompt and an alpha Mosh build.
And the browser gets the keys first. Every binding is rebindable on the options page, yet Chrome keeps Ctrl+W, Ctrl+N and Ctrl+T in a tab, and the vendor's FAQ says that on macOS there is currently no way to capture Cmd-W. Running the extension in a dedicated window wins some of them back, which is a workaround rather than a fix.
Nothing you save sits behind a passphrase. Hosts, usernames, ports and ssh arguments go into Chrome's synced preferences in the clear, the FAQ answers keychain support with not yet, and the connection-profile schema has no password field, so every password login is typed at the prompt in full. Imported private keys never leave the machine, which is the right call, but the FAQ warns they are ordinary mode-600 files under your Chrome profile that other applications may be able to read.
What changes when the terminal is its own window
Conchshell is a native application on macOS, Windows and Linux: a real PTY, xterm.js drawn on WebGL, tabs, tab groups, draggable tabs, a four-way split, search, link recognition, ten themes and seven fonts, local shell tabs that remember their working directory, and session restore at launch. Shortcuts are rebindable per action in settings, with no browser standing in front of them.
The same window watches the host you are logged into: CPU, memory, disk and processes on live graphs, network throughput per interface, latency, open connections, and a log viewer taking several sources at once with level filters, regex and live tail. Proxies over HTTP CONNECT, SOCKS4, SOCKS4a and SOCKS5, and an SSH jump host with its own credentials, belong to the connection itself, and a dropped session reconnects on its own.
The download is 9.1 MB, checked 20 August 2026, and takes 18 MB on disk on Apple silicon, 20.6 MiB on the Intel build, measured on 3 August 2026 against version 2.10.1. On Windows the installer pulls Microsoft Edge WebView2 from the network if the machine does not already have it.
Files stop being something you type
Local on one side, remote on the other, drag and drop between them. A transfer queue with progress, speed, ETA, cancel and retry. Directory compare and sync in four explicit steps with nothing implicit. Directory history and pinned directories per server. A remote file opens in your own editor, and saving sends it back.
FTPS, which is FTP over TLS rather than SFTP, sits in the same file browser, over rustls, checked against the system root certificates; certificate pinning is not there yet. RDP opens beside the SSH tabs, with one limit to read before you download: CredSSP, that is NLA, only, with no fallback, so a host with NLA switched off will not connect.
Host keys go into a trust-on-first-use fingerprint store, and the confirmation is drawn by the operating system rather than by the application. RDP and FTPS certificates are checked the same way.
What the move costs you
The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux. One feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once, an introductory price that rises to $29. It is a purchase rather than a subscription, updates are included, nothing counts your machines, and the licence key is checked on your own machine without a network. Secure Shell costs nothing and always will, so this is the only line where money appears at all.
The rest of the cost is not money. You are leaving the upstream OpenSSH client behind: Conchshell keeps its own connection list, imported and exported as a JSON bundle, and it does not support ssh-agent, so smart cards, hardware tokens and agent forwarding stop at the door. Authentication is a password, a private key, or an encrypted key with its passphrase, typed into the application.
What happens to those credentials afterwards is the trade: they live in a store encrypted with XChaCha20-Poly1305 under a key derived by Argon2id from a master phrase, with independent slots for the phrase, the system keychain and a recovery code, each credential bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host. The interface can create one and delete one; it cannot read one back, because no such command exists.
Switch when this is your week
- You move files by hand most days, and typing get and put has stopped being charming.
- There is an FTPS server in your estate that nothing in the extension can reach.
- A Windows host with NLA needs a desktop, and you would rather not run a second application for it.
- You want the CPU, memory, process and log views of the box you are on, in the window you are already in.
- You want the keyboard back, including the combinations Chrome keeps for itself, and a terminal that is there when Chrome is not.
Stay on Secure Shell if this is you
- You cannot install software: a managed work laptop, a school Chromebook, a machine that is not yours. Chrome is already there and no administrator is needed, and Conchshell has no ChromeOS build.
- You depend on OpenSSH behaviour: a pasted ~/.ssh/config, ssh certificates, ProxyJump, an editable known_hosts, port forwarding typed as flags, and upstream fixes that arrive within weeks, OpenSSH 10.3 in the May 2026 release and 10.4 in the one from 20 July 2026.
- You log in with an OpenPGP smart card, a YubiKey or a Nitrokey. That path is documented there, with a built-in agent and agent forwarding; Conchshell does not support ssh-agent at all.
- You want your host list on several machines for nothing, which Chrome Sync does with no server to run and no extra account.
- You value the sandbox: ssh runs as a WebAssembly module under a strict content-security policy, so a client-side exploit is contained by Chrome rather than by your user account.
Moving across without losing the list
- Take the backup first: options page, Save Backup, which downloads Secure Shell Preferences Backup.json holding your hosts, usernames, ports and ssh arguments. A June 2026 store review reports an update wiping the connection list, so keep that copy whatever you decide.
- Know what the backup leaves out. Imported private keys, ~/.ssh/config and known_hosts are not in it, the vendor says so itself, a restore clears the existing preferences before writing, and an invalid backup fails silently.
- Install Conchshell: Apple silicon or Intel on macOS, Windows, or .deb, .rpm or .AppImage on Linux. On macOS 13 and later the first launch goes through System Settings, Privacy & Security, Open Anyway; on macOS 12 the path is System Preferences, Security & Privacy, General. The download page has the detail.
- Enter the hosts. Conchshell's import format is its own JSON bundle and a Secure Shell preferences backup is not that format, so the values move across by hand: under a dozen hosts, type them; past thirty, write the bundle.
- Find the original key files, since imported keys cannot be exported from the extension, and keep the private and .pub parts separate, because a single .pem is rejected on the way in there. Conchshell takes a private key, or an encrypted key with its passphrase, and each password is typed once and then bound to that host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host.
- Leave the extension installed. It costs nothing, and it is still the client that works on a machine where you cannot install anything.
Questions people actually ask
Is Conchshell really free?
The application is, on all three desktops, with no trial timer and nothing that greys itself out after a month. The one paid feature is syncing saved connections between your own machines: $19 once, an introductory price that rises to $29, a purchase rather than a subscription, updates included, no count of your machines, and a licence key checked on your own machine without a network.
Does Secure Shell work outside Chrome, say in Firefox?
No. It is built on chrome.* APIs and Direct Sockets, the README says it has only been tested with Chrome, and the extension's floor is Chrome 108 with WebAssembly. Firefox, Safari and Edge are not supported as it stands, and the project ships no iOS or Android app. Conchshell is a native application on macOS, Windows and Linux, and no browser has to be running for it.
Can I keep using Secure Shell after installing Conchshell?
Yes, and most people should. The two do not touch each other: your profiles stay in Chrome's preferences, your imported keys stay on that machine, and nothing is migrated or removed. Keep the extension for the machines you cannot install software on, and use the native application where files, FTPS and RDP are part of the job.
Will my ~/.ssh/config work in Conchshell?
No. Secure Shell can take a pasted config because upstream OpenSSH is what reads it; Conchshell keeps its own connection list, with hosts, ports, users, proxy chains and jump hosts entered in the interface. That list moves as a JSON bundle, in and out, with credentials deliberately left outside the file.
What do I give up by leaving the extension?
Upstream OpenSSH itself and everything that follows from it: a pasted ~/.ssh/config, ssh certificates, ProxyJump, an editable known_hosts, port forwarding typed as ssh flags, hardware tokens through a built-in agent, and agent forwarding, none of which Conchshell offers, since it does not support ssh-agent at all. You also give up free cross-machine sync through Chrome, which is the one thing here that costs money.
Where do saved passwords live in Conchshell?
In a local store encrypted with XChaCha20-Poly1305, its key derived by Argon2id from a master phrase, with independent slots for the phrase, the system keychain and a recovery code. Each credential is bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host, so changing any of those stops it being offered, and the export bundle leaves credentials out on purpose. Secure Shell has no equivalent: the FAQ answers keychain support with not yet, and the profile schema has no password field.
Does Conchshell run on a Chromebook?
There is no ChromeOS build, so on a Chromebook the extension stays the right tool and this page is not asking you to change that. Conchshell ships for macOS on Apple silicon and Intel, for Windows, for Linux as .deb, .rpm and .AppImage, and for Android as an APK from this site. The APK is not in Google Play, and there is no iOS build.
Where this leaves you
Two tools, one keyboard. Secure Shell stays the answer for the machine you do not control, and for the day when only upstream OpenSSH will do. It is free, it is Google's, and it is not going anywhere.
Conchshell is the answer for the day with a file pane, an FTPS server and a Windows host in it. The application is free on all three desktops, and the only money in it is $19, once, for syncing connections between your own machines.