FTP - File Transfer Protocol

[ What is FTP? | Using FTP | Downloading Files ]

What is FTP?

The Internet is a large File Transfer Protocol. All web pages, e-mail messages and news articles are files that must be transferred between two computers. Two terms that are commonly used in the transferring of files are: upload and download. Upload means transferring files from your PC to another. Download means transferring files from another PC to yours.

Many types of software is available on the Internet for you to download and it can generally be broken down into three categories. Freeware is software that a person has developed for others to use without paying to license. Shareware may be downloaded and used for a trial period. After that period is over, the authors require a fee for continued use of the software. Beta releases are also available on the Internet. A beta-test allows users to test out a pre-release version of so ftware to help the company iron out any bugs or glitches before they begin marketing the application.

Accessing an FTP server through a browser is very much like entering a web site. The only real difference is that instead of using http:// the.site.we.want, we use ftp://ftp.server.name. This lets the browser know to use the FTP protocol instead of HTML. Once a site is accessed the user will be presented with a listing of files and folders. These will look like links on a web page. When a file is clicked on, the browser determines what type of file it is receiving and then prompt the user for a location to download it to. Many files will have .zip as an extension to the filename. This means that numerous files have been compressed into one larger file to facilitate faster and easier transfers. These files must be unzipped or decompressed before they can be used, both Winzip and PKUnzip are utilities that can accomplish this.

Not every FTP site can be accessed by everyone. Many times a user may attempt to connect to an FTP site and not gain access. This can be for a variety of reasons. First, the site may be a private site. A user would need a previously established, private account. Even public sites can deny access at times. Many times a public server will limit the amount of public connections to avoid overloading. It is also possible that either the server is down for maintenance or the connection to that server is down. If the site is a public site then just keep trying every so often to see if something opens up.

There are many public FTP servers available through the Internet, we will list a few: (please note that both of these sites are available via HTTP)

Using Downloaded Files

As we mentioned previously, many files will come in a compressed form called .ZIP. These need to be unzipped before you can use them. A good tip is to create a directory named "TEMP" off your root (usually c:\) to download files into.

Warning! It is very easy to pick up a virus. We don't want to start a panic, but the truth is that it is highly possible to pick up a virus off the Internet. Viruses are essentially copy commands embedded in executable (.exe) files. When you start a contaminated file or boot your system with an infected disk, the virus copies itself onto your system and begins to cause chaos and destruction on your files. Most of the major download sites scan their files diligently for infections. Don't leave yourself unprotected! The best investment you will ever make is in a good virus scanner. Two of many products for detecting and killing viruses are McAfee Virus Scan and Norton Anti-virus.
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