FileZilla

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FileZilla
Image:Filezilla.svg
FileZilla
Developer:	Tim Kosse, et al.
Latest release:	2.2.31 / February 28, 2007
Preview release:	3.0.0-beta7 / March 27, 2007
OS:	Windows
Use:	FTP client
License:	GPL
Website:	filezilla.sourceforge.net

FileZilla is a free, open source FTP client for Windows. It supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS). As of March 1, 2007, it was the 13th most popular download of all time from SourceForge [1].

The main features are the site manager, message log, file and folder view, and the transfer queue.

The site manager allows a user to create a list of FTP sites along with their connection data, such as the port number to use, the protocol to use, and whether to use anonymous or normal logon. For normal logon, the username is saved and optionally the password.

The message log is displayed along the top of the window. It displays the console-type output showing the commands sent by FileZilla and the remote server's responses.

The file and folder view, displayed under the message log, provides a graphical interface for FTP. Users can navigate folders and view and alter their contents on both the local and remote machines using an Explorer-style tree interface. Users can drag and drop files between the local and remote computers.

The transfer queue, displayed along the bottom of the window, shows the real-time status of each queued or active file transfer.

As of version 2.2.23 FileZilla uses Unicode internally. As a result, it no longer runs on Windows 9x/ME.

FileZilla Server is another product. It is an FTP server supported by the same project. It supports FTP and FTP over SSL/TLS.

FileZilla 3 (Client) is currently in development. On October 5, 2006, a first beta was released. Binaries are available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. It is included in Debian Unstable.

FileZilla's source code and downloads are hosted on SourceForge. SourceForge featured FileZilla as the Project of the Month in November 2003.

According to the Help documentation, FileZilla was started as a computer science class project in January 2001 by Tim Kosse and two classmates. The alpha version was released in late February 2001, and all required features were implemented by beta 2.1.

There are three portable versions of FileZilla as of now. They are:

Instant FileZilla: (site)
FileZilla Portable: (site)
XFileZilla: (site)

[edit] Timestamps

Because of inherent limitations in FTP, it is not possible to retain date/timestamp attributes on uploaded files. Although it does also support SFTP, which makes provision for this, FileZilla does not implement this feature even in SFTP mode.