Comments on: How to use FTP

By: Richard@Home

Richard@Home — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:31:09 +0000

I can recommend WinSCP as an FTP client if you are on windows. It supports SFTP & SCP too. http://winscp.net/

By: Mac

Mac — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:05:22 +0000

Rupert, you’re right… we by far prefer SFTP whenever it is available. Often we’ve found a lot of “antiquated” hosting services out there that don’t by default allow SFTP, so FTP seems to be the lowest common denominator for file transfer. Personally, I by far prefer SSH with rsync whenever I can get it.

Regarding setting up an FTP server, I think for Windows the FileZilla FTP server looks pretty easy, but on any Linux or FreeBSD box I’d probably recommend just enabling SFTP in your sshd_config and doing things that way. Not only is it easier to turn on but it is also secure.

Speaking of security, _never_ _ever_ use FTP or Telnet on an untrusted or open wireless network, unless you don’t care that the site get hacked. It is incredibly easy to see FTP and Telnet passwords since they are sent completely in the clear, just like the contents of an email. If you don’t believe how easy it is, go check out dsniff at http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/ and you’ll be a believer.

By: Rupert

Rupert — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:21:58 +0000

FTP is a bit antiquated these days, also the instructions ignore how to set up an FTP server. I’d recommend lftp for any command line people out there. SFTP is much more prevalent in the developer community these days if that’s what this blog is geared towards.

By: Benjam

Benjam — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:54:40 +0000

Although I use Firefox for my browsing, I use FileZilla for my FTPing. FireFTP was a bit buggy for me when I tried it (which was quite a while ago, so it may have improved since then). But FileZilla has never let me down, and the price (free) can’t be beat. FileZilla also has a feature (I’m not sure if FireFTP does) that I’ve been missing for quite some time (since back in the day when I used CuteFTP) which synchronized your browsing. As you move through the folder structure, both sides would move, not just the one you were clicking on. I loved this feature, and missed it in FileZilla, but recently found it again, and love it just as much as I did when I lost it. (it’s under View->Synchronized browsing [CTRL+Y])

Another thing to mention is that drag and drop also works in FileZilla (and I can almost guarantee any other FTP client as well), not just FireFTP. But one gotcha that still bites me every once in a while… if you’re dragging and dropping files, and you drop on a folder (even if it’s way off to the side, where the dates and attributes are), it will upload/download into that folder. So make sure you’re dropping either on a file (which will NOT overwrite the file, but work as expected) or a blank area of the directory listing.