FTP Over HTTP

FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is a source of transferring data from one server to another. It, along with it's cousin, HTTP, or Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, make up the two best ways to accomplish data transfer. However, one may be preferred to the other. Here, we will look at two ways one might prefer to use FTP instead of HTTP.

First, FTP will almost always, server speed depending, provide one with faster transfer speeds. This works out because, unlike HTTP, FTP transfers only the raw date (binary). HTTP adds meta data, which includes information such as last date modified, character encoding, and server information. This meta data can take up a significant space in smaller files. Thus, since FTP transfers only the raw data, the size of the download will be slightly smaller than those using HTTP.

Second, HTTP only allows data to be transferred in binary, while FTP offers both binary and ASCII, which "allows text conversions when files are sent between systems of different sorts." (FTP vs. HTTP). FTP allows End-Of-Line characters to be translated from one system, such as DOS, Unix, or Mac, to another system. This action is also possible because, as stated above, FTP does not transfer the meta data like HTTP does.

In conclusion, FTP is preferred over HTTP because of its faster transfer speeds and because of the fact that it allows.