You want to show one thing: a dashboard, a document, a bug. The worry is everything around it — email notifications, unrelated windows, or a password manager left open on the desktop.
In desktop Chrome and Edge, you can draw a much tighter boundary. Share one browser tab instead of your whole screen, and the browser captures that tab’s rendered page rather than everything on your monitor.
The three things a browser can share
When a site like Linkside asks to capture your screen, the Screen Capture specification defines three types of surface. Your browser may not offer every type.
| You share | Viewers can see | What stays outside the picture |
|---|---|---|
| A single tab | The rendered contents of the selected tab | Other tabs, browser windows, and other apps |
| One window | The contents of one selected application window | Other windows and the rest of the desktop |
| Your entire screen | Everything visible on the selected display | Nothing visible on that display |
A useful rule is to share the smallest surface that contains what the other person needs. For a web page or browser-based demo, that is usually one tab.
How to share just a tab
In desktop Chrome or Edge:
- Create a Linkside room, then select Start sharing.
- In the browser’s picker, open the tab section.
- Select the tab you want to show.
- If you need sound from that tab, enable the tab-audio option. Leave it off if the guest only needs the picture.
- Confirm the selection.
The picker belongs to the browser, not Linkside. The specification requires the browser to ask you to choose a display surface every time; a website cannot silently select one and start capturing it. Some browsers let a site request how the choices are presented, but you still make the final selection.
Linkside does not request a preferred surface or hide any surface category. It asks the browser for video and available audio, then uses the stream returned after you confirm your choice. If your browser or selected surface does not support audio capture, sharing continues with video only.
What a tab share hides — and what it does not
Other applications, other browser windows, and desktop notifications are outside a single-tab capture. This avoids the common mistake of exposing something that happens to appear elsewhere on the screen. MDN’s screen-capture guide warns specifically about background windows containing personal information and password managers visible during full-screen sharing.
Tab sharing is a smaller boundary, not a filter. Anything rendered inside the selected tab is part of the share. Before you start, close sensitive page content, dismiss private in-page notifications, and check that the correct tab is highlighted in the picker.
The web standard gives similar advice to browser makers: its privacy guidance tells them to steer people away from sharing an entire monitor because of the privacy risk. A window is safer than a whole screen; a tab is narrower still when all you need to show is a web page.
While the tab is being shared
The browser shows an indicator while display capture is active. Treat that as the source of truth: if you no longer want to share, use the browser’s stop control or Linkside’s Stop sharing button.
Linkside listens for the browser ending the captured media tracks, so using the browser control also ends the share in the room. If you picked the wrong surface, stop and select Start sharing again. The room remains open while you choose a different tab, window, or screen, and connected guests do not need a new invite link.
Chrome supports a “Share this tab instead” control that some sites can request for switching tabs during a live capture. Linkside does not request that control, so stopping and starting again is the predictable way to change the shared surface.
Firefox and Safari: what changes
Browsers do not all present the same choices. Linkside recommends Chrome or Edge on desktop for hosting; Firefox and Safari can host, but their screen-sharing support has caveats. If your picker does not offer a single-tab choice, put the page in a separate browser window and share only that window. Keep unrelated tabs and private content out of it.
Firefox and Safari do not currently return audio with a display capture, according to MDN’s compatibility data. Guests can join Linkside from supported desktop browsers, and mobile browsers are generally for viewing rather than hosting. Joining does not require an installation, extension, or account.
Tab audio, briefly
In Chrome, tab audio capture is available across desktop platforms. Full-system audio with an entire-screen share is limited to Windows and ChromeOS; on Linux and macOS, Chrome captures audio from a shared tab instead. Audio is always optional: even when a site asks for it, the browser may return a video-only stream.
For a video or browser demo, choose the tab and enable its audio option. For a silent dashboard or document, leave audio off. That makes the boundary easier to understand: the guest receives the selected tab’s picture, plus its sound only when you enable it and the browser provides it.
A smaller, clearer boundary
For the picture Linkside sends, the surface you approve in the browser picker is the boundary. Linkside uses a direct, browser-to-browser WebRTC connection by default. If the direct path is blocked, it falls back to an encrypted TURN relay; the media remains encrypted in transit on either path. Linkside does not record the session, and the temporary room disappears after the session ends.
Choose one tab and check it before you confirm. The guest receives that tab, not a view of your whole desktop. For the transport details, read what screen-sharing encryption protects. For a practical one-person setup, see how to share your screen privately with one person.