FTP

The original way to transfer files over the Internet was a method called FTP (File Transfer Protocol). There are still many archives available by FTP, and you can get these files in your web browser. If you're curious, try the program below to search FTP-space. On the original UNIX machines, FTP-space was searched with a program called "Archie".

Anarchie

On the Mac you can use a program called "Anarchie." Anarchie will give you the locations of files accessible through anonymous FTP. Anonymous FTP is just a method of transfering files from machine to machine over the Internet. The "anonymous" means that the owners of the computer will let anyone on the Internet access the files without restriction or fees.

<http://www.stairways.com/stairways/anarchie/index.html>

Fetch

On the Mac, you can retrieve (FTP) these files with a program called "Fetch" or you can use your web browser by preceding the URL with "ftp://" instead of "http://". Fetch is a very useful program if you write HTML for the web and need to move pages from your local Mac to the server. This is a very powerful program that is especially useful if you write your own HTML. It can be used to put files, folders, or complete directories and websites on a remote machine. You can also delete files and directories there (so be careful with this application!)

<http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html>

Netscape

Of course, since most web browsers, including Netscape, have built-in FTP clients, you can cruise FTP sites directly by using a URL of the type:

Note that "http://" has been replaced by "ftp://" in the URL. This allows you to look at anonymous FTP sites.

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