Cobrowse allows your agents to view and interact with a customer’s webpage in real time, without screen-sharing software or downloads. It works directly inside the Talkative interaction console and is designed to help agents guide customers through complex journeys, forms, or troubleshooting steps.
Cobrowse recreates the customer’s webpage inside the agent console, allowing features such as highlighting, drawing, scrolling, and remote interaction, depending on your configuration.
Cobrowse settings can only be configured by the Talkative team. The options shown in this guide are visible to you for informational purposes only.
If you would like to change any Cobrowse features or adjust what is enabled for your agents, please contact your Talkative Account Manager.
They will review your requirements and make sure the correct configuration is applied.
1. Accessing Cobrowse Settings
Cobrowse settings can be customised at organisation level. To access them:
- Log into Talkative Engage
- Open the left-side navigation menu
- Go to Settings → Channel Management
- Scroll to the Cobrowse sections:
- Cobrowse Agent Configuration
- Cobrowse Client Configuration
These sections control how Cobrowse behaves for both the agent and the customer.
2. Cobrowse Agent Configuration
These settings define how much control the agent has during a Cobrowse session.
Agent Interaction Tools
- Drawing
Allows the agent to draw on the customer’s webpage.
- Highlighter
Lets the agent highlight elements on the page for visual guidance.
- Scroll
Enables the agent to scroll the customer’s view.
- Remote Control
Allows the agent to interact with elements (e.g., click, select) directly.
All of these tools can be Enabled or Disabled depending on your business needs.
Experimental Options
Some settings are designed for troubleshooting or advanced scenarios:
- Verbose Logging
Provides detailed logs for complex pages.
Intended for diagnostics only.
- Experimental Text Diff
Helps Cobrowse parse deeply nested text or complex DOM structures.
Should only be used when required.
These experimental features may impact performance if left on unnecessarily.
Advanced Processing Settings (Danger Zone)
These settings control how frequently Cobrowse processes webpage updates.
- Queue Process Interval (ms)
How often updates are processed.
- Queue Process Limit
How many queued updates are processed at once.
Changing these can negatively impact system performance.
They should only be adjusted if recommended by Talkative support.
3. Cobrowse Client Configuration
These settings determine how Cobrowse behaves on the customer’s side.
Parse Computed Styles (Deprecated)
This option has been replaced by updated styling strategies in the widget editor.
Use Hashes for UUIDs
Used when preloading is enabled.
If preloads aren't being used, this can remain disabled to conserve resources.
Client-Side Processing (Danger Zone)
Like the agent configuration, the client settings also include advanced processing controls. These should only be changed with guidance.
4. Website Requirements for Cobrowse
Cobrowse creates a rendered version of the customer’s webpage inside the agent console.
For this to work correctly, certain website conditions must be met depending on the type of website.
4.1 Public Websites (No Changes Required)
Public websites normally work immediately because all assets, such as images, fonts, stylesheets and scripts, are already accessible to the Cobrowse engine.
4.2 Websites Behind Authentication or Firewalls
Websites that sit behind login pages or access controls often block assets that Cobrowse needs. For Cobrowse to function correctly:
You must either:
Option A — Make required assets publicly accessible
(e.g., product images, CSS files, JavaScript bundles)
OR
Option B — Whitelist the Talkative Engage application
So it can fetch these assets when reconstructing the page.
If assets remain blocked, agents may see:
- Missing styling
- Blank images
- Incorrect page layouts
4.3 Technical Requirements & Performance Considerations
Cobrowse performs best on websites that meet the following conditions:
- Moderate DOM size
Very large or complex DOM structures can slow rendering.
- Efficient load times
Slow pages lead to slow Cobrowse sessions.
- Avoid extremely complex dynamic rendering
Heavy frameworks or rapidly mutating DOMs may reduce performance.
5. Redacting Sensitive Information
Cobrowse includes built-in protections:
- Password fields are never transmitted.
- To hide additional sensitive information, apply the following attribute to any HTML element:
data-tk-cobrowse-hidden="true"This will replace the content with a black placeholder and prevent any data from being sent to the agent. This can be applied to single elements or entire sections.
6. Technology Limitations & Performance Considerations
Cobrowse works differently from traditional screen sharing tools. It does not transmit a live video stream of a customer’s screen. Instead, it uses JavaScript to recreate a structured model (“blueprint”) of the webpage and then updates this blueprint as the customer interacts. Because of this architecture, Cobrowse has several important limitations:
6.1 Single-Threaded JavaScript Performance
Cobrowse relies on JavaScript, which is single-threaded. This means:
- Tasks cannot run in parallel
- Large workloads create processing delays
- Performance depends heavily on the customer’s device CPU
6.2 Complex Websites May Run Slowly
Pages with the following characteristics may show performance issues:
- Large DOM structures
- Many nested elements
- Heavy use of animations
- Rapid DOM changes (e.g., SPAs with virtual DOM updates)
- Slow page load times
- Large image assets or complex CSS
These factors can cause:
- Lag during scrolling
- Delayed agent updates
- Slow element syncing
- Rendering differences between agent and customer views
6.3 Not Website-Agnostic
Cobrowse works only on the website where the Talkative widget is installed.
Unlike screen-sharing tools, it cannot display:
- Other browser tabs
- Other applications
- External websites
6.4 Limited Remote Control
Agent remote control applies only to webpage elements.
It cannot simulate:
- Native browser menus
- OS-level interactions
- External programs
- Drag-and-drop outside HTML elements
6.5 Asset Accessibility Required
If a website blocks assets (CSS, JS, images):
- Pages may render incorrectly
- Styles may be missing
- Layouts may break
- Images may not load
Authentication walls and firewalls commonly cause this issue.
6.6 Customer Device Defines Performance
Because all parsing happens on the customer’s device:
- Older or low-power devices will experience slower Cobrowse
- Mobile devices may struggle with large pages
- Heavy sites can create battery drain
6.7 Traditional Screen Sharing Has Performance Advantages
Compared to screen-sharing tools such as Zoom, Teams, or WebRTC screensharing:
- They are multi-threaded
- They transmit a simple video stream
- They do not rely on DOM processing
- They perform consistently across websites
Cobrowse trades performance for higher privacy, but at the cost of speed and compatibility.
6.8 Recommendation for All Customers
Before enabling Cobrowse widely:
- Test the full customer journey
- Confirm performance on mobile devices
- Validate all authenticated pages
- Check any custom scripts or frontend frameworks
- Identify high-load areas early
Some websites may require reconfiguration, reduced DOM size, or alternative assistance channels.