Category: Geeks r Us
Hey all, an internet friend has asked me a few times if I have got a ftp client. My answer continues to be no.
Could y'all tell me more about them. How easy are they to use? How secure are they? Is it like opening a door into your computer for anyone to walk hrough?
GWMicro recommends ftp voyager. Any experiences with this program?
Thanks all!
Oh BTW, is ftp better than using something like sendspace?
FTP is simply a slightly different protocol for transferring files. One would have to set up an ftp server on one's computer and then basically you create folders inside that server where you can copy files from, say, your har drive and set permissions on the folders. You can set permissions for users to download, upload (write files into that folder) or just view files, each user gets a username and password so no one can view the contents of the folder without security credentials.
It's a bit of work to set this up and, unless you want to share a lot of files, I don't really see the point.
My friend shares by www.box.net for these things, he claims it is a simplified versionof ftp where basically you can assign a folder on your computer to Box.net and then it will create a unique link to every file in that folder and auser can download the file if he or she gets the URL.
I am going to try it out and see how accessible it is, but it is an option.
Basically use this or sendspace if it is one of a kind file transfer. If you see you need to exchange a lot of files on a regular basis with someone you may want to go through the trouble of setting up an ftp server.
I've tried Acute FTP, which was not very accessible, and FileZilla which was ok.
cheers
-B
Hey, thank you for the info. No, I don't share too many files.
box.net could be the answer for me.
Are ftp transfers any faster?
Hi
Sorry, I did get it wrong, it is called DropBox. FTP is not particularly faster, it depends on yourinternet connection. If you use a service like SendSpace they may decide to limit your upload or download speeds, if you use ftp the limits are either set by you yourself or by your internet connection, whichever one is stricter, so, yes, they can be faster. But then you do have the head ache of managing an ftp server, making sure you set it up with security in mind and do not give access to files on your computer unintentionally and so on.
I would say if you are sending a single file, or a few files a month I would go with one of the send space or dropbox variety, if you are exchanging a lotof files on a daily basis, ftp is the way to go. It is used a lot buy companies handling massive amounts of data where the files are posted to the ftp site and can be downloaded automatically by client programs that automatically scan the ftp site for file updates every x minutes. I wrote quite a few clients when I worked for Wachovia that did those things, but never had to bother with the server side of it.
As someone who runs an ftp server, it's more private also, because tipicly a user must give the owner of said server a username and password in order to connect, then they're given the host address to the server. It's also better to use an ftp site through a client, because it makes it allot easier to upload files to the server. If you want a basic ftp client, go to www.whitestick.co.uk to find a free version of ftp explorer, provided you're using windows xp that is.