[2021-05-13] FTP

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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 desi-
gned 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 fac-
ilitate 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: 2022-01-05]