What is a FTP?

You will learn here about FTP sites Introduction, File Transfer Protocol guide, http, https, secure sites, active mode, passive mode communication and encryption methods. FTP (File transfer protocol is a most secure way to transfer the files over the internet. The most common and simple use of the FTP is to download the files from the internet. All internet users, by this way or other use the FTP whether they know it or not. FTP is acts as the backbone of the music, games, files, movies, images and other documents download.

When you are downloading a file or data in the form of the docs or any other format, you are actually transferring the file to your computer from another computer over the Internet. You can also know the exact physical location of the serves from where you are downloading the files but you normally know the web addresses of the ftp or http websites.

A computer that gives ftp access establishes a FTP connection. A computer that is served to host the websites is known as web server similarly a computer that establish a ftp connection known as ftp server or it is also called a ftp site.
FTP site is like a large filing cabinet. As the files are properly organized in the filing cabinet and a proper name and label can be placed on the files just like same ftp files are also properly organized and named on the ftp server.

To connect to the ftp sites three things are required ftp server ip address or host name, user id and password. By providing these three things a user can be connected to the ftp sites and can download or upload the files. The administrator of the FTP sites controls the levels of the access like read only, write or full control.


When you download anything from the Internet, you are anonymously connected to the FTP with a anonymous user id. To make a FTP connection you have to use a web browser or a FTP client software like cuteftp, wsftp or aceftp. AceFTP can be get as free.

If you want to transfer the large files then you have to use the FTP clients because web browsers are not recommended to use in this scenario. If your work is of secure name like medical transcription data or any other thing then you should use the secure FTP connections with the capabilities of 64-bit SSL encryption methods. Many FTP clients have the resume features, which mean if you data is not properly uploaded or downloaded due to any reason then you can resume the connection from where it was broken. You don’t need to start the transfer again from the beginning.