What is FTP, Why Do I Need It & How Do I Install It?
Understanding and being able to use FTP is crucial to website management. We explain what it is, why you need it and how to get it running on your computer.
What is FTP?
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. To understand FTP, you need to have a simple understanding of how websites and the internet work. Every website in the world is hosted on a "server". Servers are essentially the place where online information is physically stored. When you go to a website and download something, what you're essentially doing is transferring it from the server of the website onto your computer's hard drive. The website is just the place where you go to make this happen. As another example, your emails are all stored on the server of the website that manages your emails (hotmail, for example). When you use "Microsoft Outlook" or "Thunderbird", you're essentially transferring your emails from the website's server and onto your database.
So, to download something from a website, it has to be placed on the server first. The process for the website is: 1) Upload/transfer the information to the server, 2) Create a link on the website that allows people to download the information off the server.
So how do you put the information onto the server? This is where "FTP" comes in. It's an extension you add to your internet browser (Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, for example) that allows you to transfer files from your computer to your website's server (think of it as the hard drive for your website).
Why Is FTP So Important?
FTP is massively important. Without it, you cannot do much with your website. You won't be able to post pictures, videos, podcasts, etc... or anything else that is going to make your website work. Platforms like wordpress remove the need for FTP, but this also gives you far fewer options. Once you're comfortable with FTP you can transfer large files without worrying about email limits. For example, if you have a 1gb file to send to a friend, you can upload it via ftp to your website, create a download link and send the link to your friend. Otherwise, it would be impossible to send them the file.
Being able to use FTP is deceptively simple once you get your head around it and will give you a huge advantage in understanding how the internet works and will allow you to get more done with less hassle.
How Do I Install FTP?
Like most applications, there are various companies who offer various versions each with their own pros and cons. We recommend using "FireFTP" as it's what we use and it works well. Instead of reinventing the wheel we've simply found a video that already explains how to install FireFTP. If you're a client of ours, we'll set up log in information and passwords that we'll send to you in a private email. Below is a step by step guide about how to use that information to set up your FireFTP. We recommend using Firefox as your internet browser and to learn hot to install firefox, click here.
