What is FTP? File Transfer Protocol
If you surf the Internet frequently, you may have stumbled across the term “FTP”. If you’re wondering what the acronym means, this article has the answer.
This is behind the abbreviation FTP
FTP is the abbreviation for ” File Transfer Protocol ” .
Protocols are used in computer science to define rules for communication between multiple computers. They are therefore also called network protocols.
More precisely, FTP is a communication protocol that describes how a data packet must be structured in order to be able to be exchanged within a network. For comparison, FTP can be thought of as a mailroom while the data packets are the letters that are sent through the mailroom. Every data packet, i.e. every letter, is assigned a sender and a recipient by the post office. The size of the data package, i.e. the weight of the letter, is also determined.
FTP regulates the exchange of data between several computers within a network.
FTP works according to the client-server principle : the client can download files from the FTP server ( download ) or upload them to the same ( upload ).
In addition, directories can be created, edited and organized on an FTP server. FTP is often used to organize files on an HTTP web server.
This is how FTP works in practice
The original form of data exchange via FTP is the command line or command prompt. The Windows command prompt, for example, supports FTP commands. One usage scenario is the initial installation of a browser. If no internet browser is available, Mozilla Firefox, for example, can be installed simply by command from the Mozilla FTP server.
Pure FTP clients like FileZilla can be used like a file manager and work without entering commands in the command line. FileZilla supports both FTP and SFTP.
You can also use FileZilla to set up your own FTP server.
To upload files to an FTP server, you need username and password access. Most public FTP servers use anonymous access. In this case, the user name is “anonymous” – you can choose your own password.
