Tim Kosse and two of his classmates started FileZilla as a class project in January 2001. It was initially released in February 2001. It uses the Cross-platform operating system and is written in C++ and wxWidgets. It is available in multilingual language and is of FTP client type. FTP options are used by those people who want easily manageable websites. Those owners of website who want to put in less effort and have more control as compared to other tools that build and manage websites, should use FTP options. Transferring of files from one host to another has been made easy by File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The advantage of this process is that it conserves time by replacing manual updating. As of 2011, FileZilla ranks as the number 7 FTP online program most downloaded by the users. Updating, editing and removal of files has been made easy by this platform. There are five salient features of FileZilla:
- Comparison of Directories – The contents of various local and remote directories can be compared by the means of FileZilla.
- Log – Message logs can be displayed in the window at the top. It shows the commands and the responses sent and received by FileZilla.
- Manager of Site – This tool is used the most by users. The user is allowed to create an account of FTP sites, in combination with connection data, port number, and protocol to use, etcetera.
- Transfer Queue – Displayed in the window, at the bottom, transfer queue shows the actual status of the files which are being transferred whether active or queued.
- Folder view and file view – A graphical interface is provided by this feature to FTP. Navigation and viewing of folders becomes easy and the transferring of file between computers is also facilitated.
FileZilla comes with various advantages that it provides to its users over and above the features provided by other tools used for building sites. The plethora of advantages includes:
- Being available in a number of languages.
- The easy synchronization of local and remote directories.
- Availability of features like bookmarks, wizards for network configuration, configurable transfer speed limits and option to edit remote files.
The advantages of FileZilla are far more than the disadvantages.
- The issue of scripts can be a problem. There is no way to prompt scripts either internally or through a common line. It’s solely supported manually or with interaction.
- Another shortcoming of FileZilla is that the older versions do not make use of Windows 9X/ME. It uses Unicode.
- The new versions of FileZilla that are binary use Mac OSXv10.5. It does not support anything that is ‘Tiger’ or of times before that. It needs compilation of ‘Leopard’.
- Another major issue with it is that timestamps can be a huge problem. If the MFMT command is supported by the server, the timestamps can be retained.
- Another huge issue with this software is that the downloading of timestamps can be done if timestamps are supported by the partition that supports timestamps for file creation, date and time.
For Microsoft Windows, the FileZilla server is absolutely free of cost and an open source FTP server. SourceForge.net is the source code that hosts the FileZilla server. FTP and FTPS are supportable by the server. Compression, virtual file system, logs for messages, encryption with TLS/SSL and download and upload of bandwidth limits are the functions of the server. Huge companies like HostGator and GoDaddy support FileZilla. The reason for the popularity of FileZilla is that it is free and has an open source code. The best feature about it is that it is friendly and easy for beginners and complex and advanced for experienced users.
Go to filezilla download and see for yourself how it can make you save time and effort.