Windows users have a choice to download Bonjour themselves. Notable apps using Bonjour include iTunes to find shared music, iPhoto to find shared photos, iChat, Adobe Systems Creative Suite 3, Pidgin, Skype, and Vine Server, among others. These apps can use Bonjour via Wi-Fi. It uses a "link local addressing" scheme, which can automatically assign IP addresses to local clients without the need for DHCP.
Simply put, Bonjour eliminates the client's need for a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP). This means you won't be opening or using it directly.īonjour is silently working in the background as programs on your computer utilize it for communication over a local data network.įor example, if multiple computers on your network use the iTunes app, Bonjour makes it possible to manage shared media libraries.
For all the connectivity products, Bonjour is thoughtfully developed with customers in mind.Īlthough Bonjour is a software product, it doesn't act similarly to other applications on your computer. The software allows users to set up a network without configurations. Bonjour is both a product and service used to discover devices such as printers and the services the devices offer on a local area network using mDNS (Multicast Domain Name Service) service records. What is Bonjour Service? and what does it do?ĭon't let the French confuse you.
So, here we've compiled everything you need to know about the Apple Bonjour service.
You can use it to find other Apple services on a network, connect to other devices like network printers (that provide Bonjour support), or access shared drives. Bonjour on your computer is software developed by Apple that comes built-in with Apple’s OS X and iOS operating systems.īonjour, meaning hello in French, allows for zero-configuration networking between different types of devices.