I was shocked!

You see, in the last 7-8 years I have not use FTP on my servers. Even on the local office server I refuse to allow FTP to be installed. For file transfer I just use SFTP (Filezilla supports this).

Are you still using FTP, you might want to read the following and discover why it is time to take note

• Details of how FTP works and security.
• FTP Security Considerations

The traditional FTP protocol is highly insecure: it sends passwords in the clear. For this reason FTP has been recognized as one of the largest remaining security liabilities in most UNIX systems. As of 2006 FTP still remains one of the Internet’s most popular file upload mechanisms.

Another security risk lies not with FTP itself but with the widespread use of wireless internet connection.

With wireless, your FTP password travelling in clear over the air can be easily captured. You may be surprised that wireless attack is actually very easy. The kid next door may just be looking at your wireless traffic now.

So, if you are using FTP on your hosting server and at work, ask why. Security file transfer like SFTP, SCP, FTP over SSL are widely available. Perhaps it is time to ask if the hosting provider support them or move on to a more knowledgable hosting provider.

At this point I am still talking to the vendor to see how the FTP requirement can be relaxed or best removed.

Reference:

• Wireless Security Recommendations for Rutgers
• Wireless security on Wikipedia

Related Post:

• Filezilla FTP client
• Wipe all trace with Eraser
• KeePass 1.06 release
• Punch through web filter with Tor
• Remember all your passwords with KeePass

Filezilla

Beside web browser and email client, FTP client is probably one of the most used net-applications.

But unlike web browser and email, there are far more choices for FTP programs around. Commercial, sharewares, freewares/open source, some with really long history. Do you remember WS_FTP? A quick search shows that it is still around. It was very popular once but not many people seems to be using it now. And there were CuteFTP, SmartFTP, just to name a few.-

Personally I had not try alot of FTP clients. There might be another good Open Source FTP client around that I am not aware. However Filezilla had served me well for a few years now and I will gladly recommend it.

If you are using an unregistered or cracked copy of shareware FTP client, give your conscience a break. consider switching to Filezilla, an opensource alternative.

Filezilla won the 2006 Sourceforge Community Choice Awards under the Networking category. A testimony of its popularity.

What do I like about FileZilla?

• Support SFTP
  Must FTP client nowaday support SFTP. But this wasn’t the case before. Back then we were using SFTP in our company, we had a hard time find a good client. Filezilla had some basic support and I gave it a try. Ther rest, as they said, is history.
• Upload, download queue.
  Good for selecting files across different directories and transfer at one go.
• Mutiple connections
• Switch interface language on-the-fly.
  Important when you need to tell a colleague in another language the function to use.

My FileZilla Wish List

• Connect to multiple sites at the same time
  Open more than one connection, perhaps in tabs.
• Copy between sites
  I have seem some program able to do that.
• Better file overwrite options
  Able to set overwrite options in the queue for different files.
• Easier way to save current connection/location setting for account. Automatically save the current path for example.
• Faster SFTP
  The directory caching seems to work not that well in SFTP.

Chinese support

Chinese translation of the user interface is included. To change default language go to Edit menu:

Edit > Settings … > Interface settings > Language

Simplified chinese is one of the many languages supported.

Where to get it?

• Filezilla is at http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
• Current version: 2.2.26a
• Function: FTP client

Related Post:

• Are you still using FTP? Beware