Abstract: A thin-client system operative over a communications network provides a thin-client device with access to a dedicated application present at a server. Messages between the client device and the server conform to a control-oriented protocol that restricts the type of message permissible for transmission to only those descriptive of certain preselected events that are necessary for execution of the dedicated application on the server and excludes transmission of user actions that otherwise would be transmitted to the server from the client device according to conventional display-based protocols.