During the early days of the net, FTP was about the only way to transfer files from  a remote computer to your computer. You had to work from the unix prompt and know all of the commands. Then gopher was developed as a more user friendly way of presenting information. Now the World Wide Web makes it even easier to  grab files one at a time.

The web provides a nice way of telling people about the ftp site, but when you actually enter the ftp area you will often see a gopher type display. The reason is  simple. There are millions and millions of files already residing on computers. Reorganizing them into web sites would be counter productive. After all, that was the whole reason for developing gopher. The web browser was designed to do the  job of gopher (and more). It can enter a gopher site, read the information and present it to you on your browser screen as a gopher type display.

The WWW makes file transfer simple as long as you don't need to transfer a large  number of files. For most people knowledge of FTP is not important unless you plan on creating your own web site.  In that case you will have to learn a little about transferring files.

Once upon a time, if you were in search of software, FTP knowledge was critical.  Today the web makes it a snap,  There are web sites and search engines specifically devoted to finding and retrieving software. Probably the largest of those  sites is c/net's Shareware.com. FTP is still the best source of FREE software, but the vast majority of people will be using commercial or shareware software that is  available through shareware.com. If you are looking for Windows 95 Internet applications TUCOWS is the web site for you.

CAUTION: FTP uses a great deal of the resources of your site and the host site.  Be a good citizen. If you plan on transferring groups of files or very large files, do it during off hours and keep your on line time to a minimum.

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