Linkside’s default host path is short: select Create room, copy the invite link, select Start sharing, then choose a tab, window, or screen in the browser’s picker. Send the link to the people you want to show. There is no account to create or recording setting to check along the way.
That is our aim for minimal UX design: show a screen to a few trusted people without leaving you an account, a content archive, or a permanent room to manage afterward. The missing features matter both before the session and after it.
Keep the choices that matter
Choosing what to share belongs in the flow. So does knowing who has joined and whether they are connected. Removing those controls would leave the host with less information about the session.
An account profile serves a different purpose: it gives someone a lasting identity in a product. Linkside’s room flow does not need one. Our screen-share design asks each field and choice to earn its place between creating a room and showing the screen.
The three-question subtraction test
Three questions help explain what we keep, what we leave out, and what those choices mean for someone using Linkside.
Does it serve the live task?
Guests open the invite link and join with a generated or chosen nickname for that room. Neither host nor guest needs a Linkside account, email address, or phone number for the room flow.
The host can still enable a waiting room to approve guests, and a licensed host can require a room password. Those choices decide who enters the current session. You can use them without creating a lasting membership list.
What must the product retain?
Linkside does not record sessions, transcribe audio, or analyse the shared screen. There is no recording archive to clean up later.
There is live chat. A guest’s message travels to the host’s browser, which passes it to the connected guests. Each person’s visible messages are held in that browser’s memory; Linkside has no chat-history service to retrieve them from later. If a link or decision needs to survive the session, save it in your own notes before leaving.
Who maintains it after the moment passes?
A permanent room raises questions about next week: who can enter, who manages access, and whether an old invitation still works. Linkside gives each new session a fresh room and invitation instead.
Ending a room closes access before its record is deleted. The service keeps the closed record for five minutes so a late join attempt can receive an explanation that the room has ended (an HTTP 410 response). A cleanup check after that window deletes the record; later requests get “room not found” (HTTP 404). Expired rooms go through the same cleanup window.
The short delay lets Linkside explain an old link without making the room reusable. Our explanation of temporary rooms covers that lifecycle in more detail.
The connection still needs infrastructure
Hosting and joining work in the browser, with nothing to download and no extension or plugin required. Desktop Chrome and Edge are the recommended host experience.
Linkside first tries to send screen video and audio directly between browsers. If the network blocks that path, it can use a TURN relay: a server that forwards the encrypted media. The media remains encrypted between the browsers on either path; the relay cannot read its contents. Eligible free rooms get a five-minute relay trial, and a licence provides unlimited relay use.
What subtraction changes about trust
The useful privacy promise is specific: Linkside does not keep a recording, transcript, or chat archive of your session, and an ended room cannot be reopened.
The service still observes some operational information. Its connection service sees that a room exists, roughly when guests join, and how long the session lasts. A relay handles the routing of encrypted packets, and Cloudflare sees IP-level traffic to the relay endpoints. Neither the connection service nor the relay sees the media content. The inventory of what Linkside stores about a session explains the storage and analytics boundaries.
Linkside also cannot control what a guest does with your content outside the product. Send the invitation only to people you trust, and choose what you show with everyone in the room in mind.
The cost of removing features
You cannot return to a Linkside recording, search last week’s chat, or reuse an ended room. If your work needs a transcript, a recording, or a permanent space with managed membership, choose a tool built to provide those things.
Linkside fits a smaller job: show someone a problem, walk through a design, or explain something on your screen, then finish without leaving a Linkside content archive. Create a fresh room, send the link, and select End room when you are done. If that fits the job, create a room.