Best home File Transfer Protocol freeware?

[Loren Booda]

For some reason, my WS_FTP95 LE program (originally from Ipswitch) did not transfer to my new computer (with Windows 7).

To transfer, replace or update the program, would you have a direct link where I can get the program for free or do you have another recommendation?

Ipswitch does not make it easy to find this freeware, if indeed they have it anymore.

 

[jhae2.718]

Maybe try Filezilla?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

command line? :) FireFTP is pretty good. I use SmartFTP, but its not free.

 

[Loren Booda]

Thanks both for the tips, especially Greg for extraordinary success in his beneficent management of Physics Forums.

 

[Bill Simpson]

Trying to actually answer the question that you asked,
This
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/ws-ftp95-le-free-download-site-t2488320.html
says
The last version that's free for personal use is available here:
which points to
http://www.gabn.net/junodj/ws_ftp.htm
which says
Please note the license for WS_FTP Limited Edition has NOT changed for almost two years! Still the same license only now it is presented in a manner that hopefully you will actually read. Redistribution must be registered with Ipswitch, Inc.. This can still happen for FREE. Primary Site
and some of the links are dead but this
ftp://ftp.ipswitch.com/Ipswitch/Product_Downloads/ws_ftple.exe
was live and tossed me the executable. I didn't actually try installing to see if it was free and working.

Maybe that will get you what you need.

Now to not answer the question you asked, you might consider whether it would be feasible for you to update to Putty that includes Pscp that will use ssh and give you more security, a product that isn't getting close to 15 years old, etc.

 

[MATLABdude]

Let's just get one thing straight:
Are you trying to transfer files from computer to computer on the same network within the same home? Or are you looking for a (secure)FTP transfer client?

 

[Loren Booda]

Upload to my website, download to my computer. I guess that means "a (secure)FTP transfer client." What's your advice, MATLAB?

Thanks for the research, Bill -- considering an FTP like Putty in my hands. What's Pscp and ssh?

 

[phinds]

I used to use SmartFTP (Paid for it) and have tried several others but I now think filezilla wins hands down, free or not, and it IS free.

jhae2.718 gave the link.

 

[MATLABdude]

On the Windows side, I use a somewhat outdated, but still very good (and free) SSH Secure File Transfer--it's what the new Open SSH (which I haven't used) developed from:
http://www.filewatcher.com/m/SSHSecureShellClient-3.2.9.exe.5517312.0.0.html

SecureFTP is the free and open-source program that my university uses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinSCP

SSH is what provides the secure to the Secure FTP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_shell

 

[Bill Simpson]

What's Pscp and ssh?

Google
wiki pscp
or go directly to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PuTTY

In a few sentences, 30 years ago we were all white collar professionals who would never have thought of doing something stupid to risk our reputations. Thus some aspects of security, like ftp sending the password in the clear, were not considered serious problems. Then the public found out about the net and a lot of other things went badly wrong. There was one attempt at patching the security problems and it had its own problems. Then ssh was done to try to fix this. ssh gives you roughly a secure command line session connection. scp gives you a secure file transfer connection. Putty is a popular and seemingly dependable implementation of this that runs under Windows and now other OS. You can see if the hosts you communicate with support one of the couple of protocols for ssh and scp. If so, after a little confusion about getting it to work the first time, then you should have secure file transfers.

 

[jhae2.718]

Definitely use SFTP over FTP.

PuTTY is good for Windows as far as secure shell goes, POSIX systems should come with an SSH client.