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Comment by lubutu | Hacker News Reader

The problem with FTP starts with the protocol. It's tragic that this startup doesn't use something like SFTP.

Absolutely. 1ftp actually uses HTTPS on the client end to secure the connection, over port 80. There is no direct FTP connection for users, only on the backend to the server. The service acts as a gateway, though its transparent to the user.

At the end of the day this really isn't much better. I would prefer FTP to be recognised as the bad practice/evil it is.

1FTP looks like it has a nice interface though.

Believe me, I'd love to replace it :)

With git, scp and rsync available, what credible use case remains for FTP?

Two-pane drag-and-drop graphical clients. Most of them also support SFTP.

WinSCP? http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

Those things are commonly unavailable on Windows servers, in my experience. This is probably due to some combination of crappy administrators, difficulty of installation, lack of tooling, etc.

Does Windows allow easy setup of webdav over https?

That wouldn't solve the shared account credential problem that 1FTP tackles, but it would improve security.

Those things are great for tech-savvy developers, but the majority of folks still use FTP - it's the defacto method for connecting to a webserver, and is what every web host emails to their customers. 1FTP will be a heck of a lot easier to set up than Git, or anything else.

It may not seem so to an experienced developer, but the experience for an end user with things like that is an absolute nightmare. We're trying to make it easier, not harder :)

I actually refuse to work with FTP. More developers should. Hosts should refuse too.

There are some good GUIs for SCP that reduce the barriers of entry to the same level as FTP.

IMO you're trying to solve a problem that shouldn't be solved. Maybe turn your 1FTP app into an SCP interface. That way the "difficult" things you describe become easy.

My hate for FTP could be clouding my judgement.

Nobody likes FTP - we're doing our best to make it a positive experience though :)

By this logic (musn't force anyone to learn anything) we should all still be using IRC and USENET instead of Skype and web forums. So you want to provide a nice layer of abstraction over file transfers, that's laudable. What doesn't make sense is predicating your abstraction on a shitty protocol with a multi-decade long history of security issues. Best of luck to you in any case.

agreed -- ftp use should have stopped in the 90s

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