File Transfer Protocol

The File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, is a standard network protocol used to copy files between a client computer and a server over a TCP/IP network. American computer scientist Abhay Bhushan wrote the first specification for FTP in 1971 as part of the early ARPANET research that led to the modern internet. FTP became one of the internet's earliest widely used services for sharing software and documents, and though largely superseded by web-based and encrypted file-transfer methods for everyday use, its basic client-server design remains a reference point for later file-transfer protocols.