In order to determine the optical and thermal performance of a solar parabolic trough collector under the climate conditions of Algerian Sahara, a computer program based on one dimensional implicit finite difference method with energy balance approach has been developed. The absorber pipe, glass envelope and fluid were divided into several segments and the partial derivation in the differential equations was replaced by the backward finite difference terms in each segment. Two fluids were considered, liquid water and TherminolVP-1 (TM) synthetic oil. Furthermore, the intensity of the direct solar radiation was estimated by monthly average values of the atmospheric Linke turbidity factor for different tracking systems. According to the simulation findings, the one axis polar East West and horizontal East West tracking systems were most desirable for a parabolic trough collector throughout the whole year. In addition, it is found that the thermal efficiency was about 69.73-72.24%, which decreases with the high synthetic oil fluid temperatures and increases in the lower water temperature by 2%. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.