FTP client - Definition and Overview

A FTP client uses the FTP protocol to connect to an FTP server to transfer files.

Basic FTP clients come with many operating systems, including Windows, DOS, Linux and Unix. However, many enhanced clients are available typically as shareware for Windows and as freeware for Unix-like systerms. Many modern web browsers have built-in FTP clients as well (though an ftp client will work better for private ftp servers than your browser).

Some operating systems including newer versions of Windows and Mac OS X can mount FTP servers as virtual drives directly within the operating system, which may be easier or more convenient for some users than using a specialized client.

Common interactive command-line FTP clients include:

• tnftp - the NetBSD ftp client
• lftp [1] (http://lftp.yar.ru/)
• ncftp [2] (http://www.ncftp.com/ncftp/)

GUI clients for windows include:

• FlashFXP [3] (http://www.flashfxp.com/) (shareware)
• SmartFTP [4] (http://smartftp.com/) (freeware)
• FileZilla [5] (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/) (freeware)
• FTPRush [6] (http://www.ftprush.com/) (shareware)
• WS_FTP [7] (http://www.ipswitch.com/products/file-transfer.html) (shareware)
• CuteFTP [8] (http://www.cuteftp.com/) (shareware)

Additionally, sftp tunnels the FTP protocol over ssh for a much more secure session. Wget is a command-line utility that can download via FTP non-interactively.