FTP, is an acronym that basically stands for File Transfer Protocol. File Transfer Protocol or FTP in its simple form essentially refers to the simplest and quite rightly the most secure method of exchanging and transferring files across the Internet. It also stands for a client-server protocol that allows users to have file transfers from one computer to another to and fro across a TCP/IP network. This protocol that is used for file exchange across a network operates just like HTTP, which stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, that is used for the transfer of web pages from a server to a browser when a user is looking to view a particular webpage and SMTP, which means Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, that is used for the transfer over the Internet of electronic mail, which means that in essence FTP uses the TCP/IP protocol to be able to transfer data efficiently over a network.
In relation to FTP, a TCP/IP protocol means a Transmission Control Protocol, which is a highly important internet protocol suite. The TCP protocol is so centrally placed that the whole suite is referred to as the ‘TCP/IP’. IP which denotes Internet Protocol handles transmission that is lower-level from one computer to another computer as the message makes its way over the Internet. TCP works at a high level than IP and is concerned with the two end system only, for instance a Web server and a Web browser. FTP is nowadays being incorporated in web browsers like the Netscape. In FTP, the key word to take into account is the word ‘protocol’ that means a set of standards or rules that serve to govern interactions among computers. This word is an essential component in a large number of terms that are nowadays taken for granted. These are words like what we have already established above; the FTP, the HTTP, the SMTP and more commonly the TCP/IP which all have an important role for every area they are involved with in the Internet world.
The File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, differs with the other types of protocols in that the FTP is what it exactly explains, to transfer files. The files that are moved or transferred from a computer to another are moved or copied as exactly as they were in the previous computer. Also when the files are being sent back, they are as the same from their point of destination.