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  • Web browser support

    Most common web browsers can retrieve files hosted on FTP servers, although they may not support protocol extensions such as FTPS. When an FTP — rather than an HTTP — URL is supplied, the accessible contents on the remote server are presented in a manner that is similar to that used for other web content. A full-featured FTP client can be run within Firefox in the form of an extension called FireFTP.
    Syntax
    FTP URL syntax is described in RFC 1738, taking the form: ftp://[<user>[:<password>]@]<host>[:<port>]/<url-path> (the bracketed parts are optional).
    For example, the URL ftp://public.ftp-servers.example.com...ory/myfile.txt represents the file myfile.txt from the directory mydirectory on the server public.ftp-servers.example.com as an FTP resource. The URL ftp://user001:secretpassword@private...ory/myfile.txt adds a specification of the username and password that must be used to access this resource.
    More details on specifying a username and password may be found in the browsers' documentation (e.g., Firefox and Internet Explorer). By default, most web browsers use passive (PASV) mode, which more easily traverses end-user firewalls.
    Security
    FTP was not designed to be a secure protocol, and has many security weaknesses. In May 1999, the authors of RFC 2577 listed a vulnerability to the following problems:
    Brute force attacks
    Bounce attacks
    Packet capture (packet sniffing)
    Port stealing
    Spoof attacks
    Username protection
    FTP does not encrypt its traffic; all transmissions are in clear text, and usernames, passwords, commands and data can be read by anyone able to perform packet capture (sniffing) on the network. This problem is common to many of the Internet Protocol specifications (such as SMTP, Telnet, POP and IMAP) that were designed prior to the creation of encryption mechanisms such as TLS or SSL. A common solution to this problem is to use the "secure", TLS-protected versions of the insecure protocols (e.g., FTPS for FTP, TelnetS for Telnet, etc.) or a different, more secure protocol that can handle the job, such as the SFTP/SCP tools included with most implementations of the Secure Shell protocol.
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