Talk:Comparison of FTP client software

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Comparison of FTP client software article.
Article policies
Note: clients without a corresponding Wikipedia article are subject to immediate removal from this article. Before adding a client, ensure that it has an existing article, or create the article first using the software notability proposal as a guideline.

Contents

[edit] Konqueror

If Internet Explorer is listed then I think Konqueror ought to be listed too seeing as it has a much more advanced FTP client than Internet Explorer. Fyorl (talk) 08:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

I don't think it should be moved because none of the other comparison pages are merged. --Ctachme 18:24, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

None? :) Comparison_of_content_management_systems is not merged with List of content management systems or Content management system.
I think the comparison articles can become quite large, esp. if we include many clients that are not currently in the list and thus should be seperate. Perhaps the FTP client article could have a blurb about the comparison article, it seems the formatting is up in the air currently. --ShaunMacPherson 04:25, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Don't merge. --minghong 06:39, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Merge. Lists are a lightning rod for spam and the comparison is more useful & makes a list redundant. See also Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_image_viewers for precedence. --Karnesky 23:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Precision about Filezilla sftp mode

Actually, Filezilla doesn't support key authentication for sftp, I think it should be mentioned because the only windows client that support keys is WinSCP.

[edit] Messy table

The last table is very messy - there seems to be an inconsistent number of columns. Additionally atleast the information for lftp is incorrect: it supports ftp and sftp as well as ftp over ssh and https. I am not sure how ftp over ssl is different from the other protocols. Amaurea 23:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial FTP clients

Commercial FTP clients seem to have a plethora of different versions, which are presented as different products (plain version, deluxe version, turbo-uber version, mac version and so on). This makes it hard to put them in the table. I just cleaned up some inconsistencies with ftp commander in this respect: other information was about the plain version, but the capabilites listed were those of the deluxe version. If the capabilities of the deluxe versions are different from the normal one, then this entry will have to be corrected. I suggest that we list the name of the basic version only, and mark deviations with footnotes if necessary.

The table was also riddled with external links to the commercial vendors. External links should be in the external links section at the bottom, shouldn't it? And anyway, the links belong in the articles of the clients themselves, and not in this list. Frankly, I suspect that most of the later additions of commercial ftp clients here are by their own vendors. The recently added information about bulletproof ftp client (bpftp.com has address 216.254.61.98) was added by an anonymous user at 216.254.18.172, for example. Attemts to link to articles like "60 day trial" in the license section of the table is also suspect. A big cleanup and systematisation of the list would be nice. Amaurea 11:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Features

Is SCP and WebDAV really relevant to this article? It is not supposed to include all types of file transfers, just FTP-related ones, isn't it? Amaurea 09:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

For example, SFTP is no more related to FTP than SCP is. On the other hand, you are right, this article claims to be related to FTP protocol. But as long as List of SFTP clients is redirected here, SFTP should stay here. And if SFTP, then SCP too. I have already proposed once, to create a list/comparison of "file transfer clients", where I do not mean a protocol, but a functionality. Then it may refer to all file transfer protocols as this article does. --Prikryl 15:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SmartFTP?

Testing the client and reading the documentation seems like SmartFTP doesn't support SFTP. It does supports SSL/TLS ftp and ftp over ssh (port forwarding), but not SFTP.

--Alesis69 05:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Confusion seems to abound. See SFTP. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed - SmartFTP support forums are busy with users who want SFTP functionality. An ETA of 4Q 2006 has been posted by their developers.

[edit] CuteFTP vs. CuteFTP Pro

Cuteftp.com has two versions - Home and Pro. The look and feel is quite different for the two, and the feature set is probably larger for the Pro version.

[edit] Filtering?

It would be really nice to have some way of filtering the tables by user's criteria. I found the page by searching for comparison of linux FTP clients (this page combines them into same group as windows)

--Fry-kun 19:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last release on?

How about adding a date when the last version was released? Then you can easily see which clients are abandoned and which are still in development. (someone wrote sometime)

Great idea! More useful than date of first release! And does not require an additional column -- just tack it on with the Last stable version number. 69.87.202.246 00:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fling

Fling File doesn't perform SFTP. It only does FTP. I suggest removing it from the list.

[edit] FTP client features table?

I suggest adding another table that should list some of major FTP client features (like it is done in Comparison of wiki software) such as broken download / upload resuming, searching, ability to download a single file through multiple simultaneous connections to a server, proxy server support and others.

In my opinion, that information would greatly help those, who read this article in order to select a FTP that meets their needs.

But a problem here is that neither I nor most other editors are able to check each of the clients listed here against each feature, so that kind of table is likely to be incomplete.

Shambler0 02:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


Another problem with this table: there are lots of red "no"s in the column for FTP over SSH. But I think it's actually the next column that most people are referring to when they talk about "Secure FTP", i.e. Secure File Transfer Protocol, currently labelled as "SSH file transfer protocol" in the table.

(and also, is Interarchy really the only client that supports FTP over SSH?)

Maybe the "FTP over SSH" column should be deleted, or moved to the far right, and the "SSH file transfer protocol" column renamed? - 124.168.82.182 07:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

oops, I meant the features table already there, not the proposed new one. - 124.168.82.182 07:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. We should only have ftp, sftp (secure), ftps (over SSL), and fxp in Protocol support; things like https/webdav seem to be unrelated. And isn't compression (MODEZ?) a server feature? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.132.203.93 (talk) 09:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

I think this table is really neccessary. (Nhocjok 09:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC))

Agree. For those going to create the table: CoreFTP, SmartFTP support Unicode; FileZilla, WinSCP, FlashFXP, WS FTP not support Unicode. --137.189.4.1 (talk) 05:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

Some of the other technology lists limit entries to those that have their own article. This ensures notability, of the client in this case, and eliminates the temptation of link spammers to add a URL just to increase their google ranking. Another advantage is that the discussion of notability happens at the article level, not here. Does any other editor have a problem if we start eliminating entries that don't have an article (blue link) associated with them? JonHarder talk 21:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Seeing no objections to using the existence of an article to guage notability, I am adding a talk page template at the top of this page that includes a notice indicating that non-article entries are subject to removal. If no one objects, I will start cleaning up the article in a few days. ✤ JonHarder talk 22:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No GUI?

  • lftp, NcFTP - (CL) Command-Line interface only - no GUI


lftp and NcFTP seem to have no GUI, just command line interface. I've added a notation of this significant limitation. Please put the information in another better form if you can think of a good way. Please add this notation to other clients where appropriate. 69.87.202.246 00:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date/Timestamps

When transfering files, the ability to retain the original date/timestamp is desirable. Standard FTP cannot upload files and retain timestamp! FireFTP cannot even download a file and retain timestamp, because it is just a Firefox extension. Filezilla cannot upload and retain timestamp, even in SFTP mode (which can support this), apparently because of its FTP heritage. WinSCP is the only program I have found so far that can upload files and retain the original timestamp, instead of resetting it to the current local filesystem time. Should we have a column for this feature, or otherwise note it in the article? 69.87.199.144 20:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename

This article should be renamed "Comparison of file transfer clients" and both "Comparison of FTP clients" and "Comparison of SFTP clients" should redirect here, at a minimum. But the tricky bit is that we should also merge with "Comparison of SSH clients". Logically. But that already has quite a bit of information, about a whole different set of programs. And it would then make a huge article that would be somewhat unweildy, and some people would take offense, and start cutting out information... 69.87.200.97 19:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need to seperate FTP and SFTP clients

Right now, the title is inaccurate, at least. Plus, there's no distinction between FTP and SCP/SFTP client.--Ssj4android 20:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows Explorer is a ftp client

Windows Explorer is a Ftp client and supports folder view.

[edit] suggest comparison

i found this freeware Freeftp --83.190.205.33 05:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AOL and Netscape as FTP clients

Hi, Could someone please add entries for these 2 FTP clients (I don't have time to figure out the table format of this article):

  • AOL FTP client: free (comes bundled with the AOL software); Mac OS 7.5 - Mac OS X
  • Netscape products: Footnote: Netscape versions 3 thru 4.77 supported multi-file drag-and-drop FTP upload. No delete or rename capability. Versions 4 - 7 (at least) upload via the Composer or Publisher interface.

P.S. I'm surprised Netscape was missing. Has this article been vandalized?? Thanks -- JEBrown87544 23:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IE not support FTPS

I searched the google. It seems that IE is not support ftps directly.

Univerwu 01:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Run as a Windows Service?

Can there be a section added which details whether the client can be run as a windows service? Agasante 12:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FTP.EXE

add ftp.exe, and add DOS etc to the operating system support —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.146.22 (talk) 05:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please add a column about mapping the FTP/SFTP/FTPS/WebDAV URIs as drives

That seems to be a very helpful ability. WebDrive and SftpDrive are the first candidates... 23:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

--Denis