What is FTP?
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. A protocol is simply a set of rules that computers on a network
use so that they both speak the same language. FTP is a protocol used to copy a file from one computer
to another. That is all you need to know about protocols and that's
about as technical as any discussion on protocols will get.
It may surprise you to know that FTP is the founding protocol of the Internet.
It goes back to the 1960's when the United States military wanted to transfer information around a national
network of computers.
FTP is still the standard method of transferring files across the Internet. Whether you are aware of it or
not, most links found on the Web that point to large files will use FTP as the protocol to carry out
the transfer, and as FTP allows you to both send and retrieve files it is also the method used to maintain
Web sites.
However, for too long FTP has been the reserve of the 'technically aware'. This has mainly been due to
the obsolete software available to access FTP sites. Even recent Windows® based FTP clients may still
expect their users to visualise UNIX style directory structures and navigate 'abstract file names'.
The use of the term UNIX (which is just another operating system as Windows® is) may itself be
enough to turn off all but the highly computer literate.
Life is not so complicated these days, Terrapin FTP Browser firmly brings FTP into the nineties and beyond.
PC Magazine stated "...Windows 95's FTP client is a DOS program of unpleasant mien - if
you're not familiar with UNIX file system commands when you start using it, you will be by the end.
Terrapin FTP Browser 2 is to such nastiness as Windows 95 is to DOS"
(PC Magazine Sep 1997 Volume 6 Issue 9).
If you can use Windows® Explorer to navigate the folders on your own
computer then, using the same familiar file tree structure, you will be able to use Terrapin FTP Browser to
navigate the files and folders of a remote computer anywhere in the world - it's that simple!
And other documents in this section will tell you how to actually do it.