On 12/23/22 15:56, Frank D. Engel, Jr. wrote:
While the ftp protocol is still used in places, it is being replaced more and more with sftp, because ftp sends passwords in plain-text.
Yes, obviously. But that replacement is a decision for network administrators, not vendors. That is my complaint. I know the implications, and I make informed choices.
But it seems today that most people are just content to be led around by the nose. :-(
As far as on macOS, the curl utility is readily available can handle most common requirements for ftp, for those who need it, and there are other 3rd-party solutions of various kinds available.
Sure. But that's Apple telling people how to work, and removing a utility that people may want to use.
Apple likely dropped their own support for it to reduce the amount of space consumed by the OS for an unsafe protocol that is becoming more and more of a rarity for anyone other than a select few, which is easily handled by 3rd-party options for the handful of us who still need it.
Apple probably dropped it because they tend to remove anything they perceive as "old". Surely you've seen the size of OSX these days; it's huge...the tiny FTP binary is a drop in the bucket. It's 99KB on a modern Linux x86 system, and 77KB on ARM. (not including the shared libraries which are already there for other binaries)
There's no real reason for Apple to remove it other than wanting to dictate how people work, and to save those who won't learn about the tools from themselves.
-Dave
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Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Dave McGuire