Extensions for the Nomad: FireFTP

Ok Nomads, I’m back for another entry.

Once again, finding that useful piece of software that keeps your browsing experience small, simple, and enjoyable.

Today I’m not just reviewing an old favorite of mine, I’ll tell you a little bit about why it’s important.

I’ll be honest here, in this more modern version of the web, FTP seems to be forgotten for fancy uploaders with pretty graphics built in to most websites and it’s hardly used now by the general public.

So what is FTP and why does it still matter?

According to Wikipedia:

FTP is a commonly used protocol for exchanging files over any TCP/IP based network to manipulate files on another computer on that network regardless of which operating systems are involved (if the computers permit FTP access). There are many existing FTP client and server programs. FTP servers can be set up anywhere between game servers, voice servers, internet hosts, and other physical servers.

I’ll sum up the rest of the article for you, FTP is a quick and easy way to send and receive files to servers that support it. It’s fairly fast, can be secured with both public (password free) and private (password protected) directories and is supported in almost every web browser already.  If you host your website with a company like Dreamhost, 1and1, GoDaddy, or some Yahoo accounts, uploading from a FTP client is far faster than using a site-based uploader, especially for making small changes.

If it’s supported by Firefox/Flock/etc already, why do I want an extension?

Perhaps I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. Downloading from FTP servers is supported by all major browsers, the only one I’ve found that supports uploading is -ick- Internet Explorer for Windows.

FireFTP changes that, giving you a full-fledged ftp client within Firefox and its offspring. It’s not the fastest FTP client I’ve found, and in many ways it’s not the prettiest, but the UI is very easy to work in, and the instant gratification of pulling it up from the Tools menu is an absolute plus.

Like any Ftp client worth it’s salt, FireFTP supports multiple accounts (not at the same time, but few clients do), better still, while many clients cost anywhere between $10 and $30, FireFTP is completely free for you to use (though the author does ask that you make a charitable donation) –BTW just found a weird bug in Flock while trying to paste the address for that link in.

Half the donation goes to orphans in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and FireFTP will only ask you once, so there’s no annoying splash like some freeware/shareware FTP clients.

Sounds great, so what’re you holding back on?

Ok, I’ll be honest, there is a cloud to go with this silver lining.  Unlike many standalone clients, you cannot drag files from an explorer/finder window and have it automatically upload to your server, you must navigate your disk from the client’s UI and upload/download from there.  It’s also a bit slower to start and cancel uploads than most standalone clients, so in many cases I’d recommend not using it to update a blog or cms installation, but for uploading pictures, media, and small files its a must-have extension for the modern-day nomad.

Verdict:

If I didn’t think it was perfect for portable browsing, it would never have been a part of PocketFlock’s earlier history.  If you’ve got any another FTP client on your USB drive, ditch it right away.

Tags: flock, firefox, pocketflock, fireftp, ftp