FTP

Short for File Transfer Protocol, FTP was first proposed in 1971 for and developed for implementation on hosts at MIT and was later defined by RFC 959 published in 1985. FTP is a standard way to transfer files between computers. The method has built-in error checking. FTP often refers to a standard way of transferring many types of files over the Internet. Below is a short listing of some of the software programs you can use to connect to an FTP server from your computer.

1. FileZilla - A fantastic free FTP program with everything most users need.
2. SmartFTP - A great FTP with everything most users need. 
3. CuteFTP - Another popular and widely used FTP program.
4. Internet Explorer - Users who have Microsoft Internet Explorer on their computer can also use Internet Explorer to connect to FTP servers.

In addition to using any third-party software program, many computers, including all Microsoft Windows computers, Linux computers, and Mac OS X computers, come with a command line FTP program; see our FTP page for additional information and tips with these commands.

Although many FTP servers require logins many FTP servers also allow anonymous ftp login, which only require a username, often an e-mail and no password.

Finally, it is important to realize that FTP is insecure. When your username and password are sent to the server they're both sent as plaintext and could be intercepted and read.

• Additional information about setting the rights or doing a chmod to a file through an FTP client can be found on document CH001147.

Also see: File transfer, FSP, HTTP, Network definitions, Port, Protocol, SFTP, TFTP