FTP-programs aren’t exactly a big turn-on. There are a number of them out there on the market, all doing the same thing, managing/uploading and downloading files from FTP-servers. If you are looking for a good and free FTP-program FileZilla might be what you are after.

The interface in FileZilla is pretty much like in any other major FTP-programs, there are two columns; one for your local drive and one for the outside server. Moving files is just a matter of drag and drop. It is possible to customize the different file-views, for example you can select if file-size should be displayed or not among other things. The program can remember your column width preferences if you set it do so, which is neat.

FileZilla is packed with features, it supports FTP over SSL and SSH. It runs fine on Windows, Linux and MAC OS X. What’s even more impressing is the GSS-support, which means that it’s possible to send encrypted traffic from a client to a FTP-server. However it requires that Kerberos (a network authentication protocol) is installed on the client computer and that the server supports it.

In order to keep order of all your FTP-servers there is something called Site Manager. Except for a list of FTP-servers it’s also possible to choose the default directory of each server listed. If you are adding a new server don’t forget to click “Save and Exit”, otherwise your settings will be lost the next time you use the program. This is actually any annoying problem and is one of the things I really have against FileZilla.

FileZilla is one of the best FTP-programs out there, and it’s free. It caters to both basic users and corporations, in fact many large corporations use FileZilla as their default FTP-program.