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File
Transfer Protocol (FTP)
The file transfer
protocol is the primary method of transferring files over the
Internet at very high speed.
Transfer
Modes
Two transfer
modes are used in FTP. ASCII and BINARY. ASCII mode is used for
the transfer of files consisting of plain text while the BINARY
mode is used all types of files not consisting of plain text (such
as sound, video, executables, images etc.). ASCII is called type
A (for ASCII) and binary is called type I (for Image). Various
character translations take place between computers to make the
file more readable in ASCII transfers. BINARY transfers do not
make any changes to any character of file.
Anonymous
FTP
A virtue
of FTP is that you do not need to have a valid user account on
the target domain. You can access the files on the FTP site by
using an anonymous user account if the domain allows you. You
enter the user name as anonymous and the password is your email
address.
FTP clients
You can always
type the command ftp on your Windows 9x, Windows NT or UNIX machine
to invoke a command oriented FTP client. Below are some common
GUI (Graphical User Interface) clients. To see a specific FTP
tutorial for one of these applications, please click on links
below:
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