A ‘Zilla By Any Other Name…
If you use FTP you’ve gotta try this one…
I have heard of, even downloaded but never used, a freebie FTP client called FileZilla. Having been a subscription paying fan of CuteFTP since the earth cooled, I was not particularly interested in yet another FTP client. But one of my favorite gurus, Mark Gibbs, raved, as Mark is want to do, about this one in his Network World column, I decided it was time to give it a test drive.
Impressed is the word… so much so that I decided to spew this out there for the possible benefit of my vast cadre of a couple of readers. FileZilla quickly justified Mark’s rave. A small download and quick install, it is easy and intuitive, faster than any FTP client I’ve ever tried, and fit my budget perfectly. If you haven’t already tried it, do yourself a favor and check it out.
Incidentally, Gibbs also reports the FileZilla FTP Server is excellent if you need such…
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Quick Hits…
-”The moment George W. Bush attacked Iraq, he guaranteed a war with North Korea.” -[D]oing the THUG shuffle. -If you use FTP you’ve gotta try this one… -Corker’s Hometown Police Endorse Ford -Lindsay gets all the most creative hateful commenters…
Yes, free open source applications are usually great. For most average users they can provide you with what you need for little or no money and suffice. But beware of what you implement open source for. Running FTP for a 500 person healthcare ASP, I ran into a few serious issues with Filezilla.
At first it was a great option since we could ask vendors to connect to us using this free client capable of the SFTP connection we require. But once issues arose Filezilla was of no support.
Seeing as how we require 100% uptime the need was there for the FTP server itself to have licensed support. So we chose WSFTP (ipswitch) as the server. The command that the Filezilla client uses to remove a directory (RMD) would not work properly with the WSFTP server. I immediately went to the Filezilla forums and reported the issue. A Filezilla developer replied to me and told me that two varying FTP applications could not read the command the same way and there was nothing I could do. I reported it to WSFTP and within 48 hours they issued an application wide patch to resovle the problem.
Of course I updated my post at the Filezilla to include a link to the patch issued by WSFTP.
All-in-all, if you are using open source to FTP items to your website that gets minimal traffic, then fine. If you plan to structure a profitable business around it, then finding a product with licensed support is the better alternative.
MO