💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › log › 2021 › 202105 › 20210513-ftp.gmi captured on 2023-12-28 at 15:53:24. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-04)
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I learned yesterday that Firefox dropped all support for FTP last month. Chrome did the same back in January. I didn't notice the change because I use GNU IceCat at home, and IceCat still supports FTP at time of writing.
From a technical standpoint, it makes perfect sense. FTP is a very old protocol, and even at the time of its creation, it wasn't designed to be secure. Its command set is very simplistic. The protocol itself can be difficult to implement in practice. It's tough to extend in a secure way. Other protocols have solved many of its shortcomings, from SFTP to SCP to peer-to-peer solutions.
In practice, even if I used Chrome or Firefox, this change would hardly affect me. The web browsers I've used always had a lackluster FTP interface--it was clear they weren't meant to use the protocol heavily. For years I've used either CLI clients or FileZilla to facilitate my actual FTP needs.
Those issues notwithstanding, I'm still sad to see support for FTP go away. Whatever complaints people may have about it, FTP has stuck around for decades, and it's stuck around for a reason: it's simple and it functions.
There's an idea in modern society, and especially in modern business, that in any flaws are found in an old thing, that old thing must be disposed of immediately. I disagree with this philosophy--even if the old thing in question is unsafe. People should be educated about what the flaws are, and if they decide to accept the risks associated with those flaws, they should be allowed to do so. I doubt there are many FTP users in 2021 who aren't aware of some of bigger issues with the protocol, but they have their reasons, and those reasons should be respected.
Of course, another option is simply to switch to a web browser that has the desired functionality. Though the reason was not related to FTP, I've now switched away from a browser that does not support FTP to a browser that does.
One more reason not to go back to Firefox, I guess.
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[Last updated: 2021-10-28]