7 ms·

There are 100,000s of resources on publicly accessible FTP servers and the removal of direct access to these files via one of the worlds most used browsers is m

There are 100,000s of resources on publicly accessible FTP servers and the removal of direct access to these files via one of the worlds most used browsers is major blow for information storage and retrieval on the internet. It is obvious that the next FTP related headline we see from Google is when (not, if) they drop FTP links from all Google search results. There's no point them listing FTP urls in the results if their own browser can't connect to them. (I don't understand why they can't just keep FTP support in, but with a security dialog that warns users the connection and data will be non-encrypted) So much is going to be lost when this happens, it's really sad. All because Google want to recreate the internet as the Googlenet, with HTTPS URLs only, most of which link to their own walled garden servers (AMP etc.) The internet started off as a wonderful limitless information sharing platform, now it's just a shopping mall controlled by corporates. The worse thing is... the general public just don't care.

waspleg 7y ago
True. They're very much the new Microsoft and Chrome is the new IE. But the general public also doesn't know what it used to be like. I logged in just to up vote you. I wish we had functioning anti-trust laws.
- adaptbrian 7y ago
  the US govt has google on points one and two currently. this has been building since the last round of FTC comments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GK8YUqQUHYqfmulKuDUwhYG2_GSQa2lM/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GK8YUqQUHYqfmulKuDUwhYG2_GS... although many including google are evading. they dont care for some reason: https://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-criticizes-tech-firms-evasive-testimony-requests-answers-questions https://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-criticiz...
tln 7y ago
> There are 100,000s of resources [...] major blow for information storage Thats a very small fraction of all the resources. > It is obvious that the next FTP related headline we see from Google is when (not, if) they drop FTP links from all Google search results. There's no point them listing FTP urls in the results if their own browser can't connect to them. This is a worthy concern, for sure. Although how do you know they haven't already done this? Do you have a search that shows ftp: urls? > The internet started off as a wonderful limitless information sharing platform, now it's just a shopping mall controlled by corporates. I'm trying to think of the period when the internet wasn't driven by corporate interests. Before the dot com boom, I suppose? When newsgroups thrived, and email servers roamed free without spam? That was fun but theres a fuckton more information on the internet now.
- jsnell 7y ago
  > Do you have a search that shows ftp: urls? Sure, searching for "rfc 1337 inurl:ftp" returns FTP urls for the top four results for me.
  - tln 7y ago
    Thanks
  - derefr 7y ago
    I wonder if any FTP was spoken by the spider to discover those resources, or whether those are just opaque FTP links discovered embedded in HTTP resources, that were not crawled further.
    - jsnell 7y ago
      They're crawled, and the full content is indexed. (You can see a text snippet, and some of the results aren't actually RFC 1337 but other RFCs referring to it).
    - tln 7y ago
      Yes, google has a cache of some FTP links, as found by GPs query. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TaTfcCqtrRwJ:ftp://ftp.scc.kit.edu/pub/rfc/bcp/bcp159.html+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TaTfcCq...
tootie 7y ago
Nah. Average consumers almost never touch ftp anymore. I'm a tech pro and even I haven't used ftp in years. Having ftp servers accessible from a browser is a fairly useless luxury at this point. Dedicated ftp clients are very easy to come by for anyone.
- Touche 7y ago
  Do dedicated ftp clients include crawling and indexing?
  - cronix 7y ago
    I don't think I've ever come across a web search that led directly back to a ftp site. How much do they actually currently index ftp anyway?
  - T-hawk 7y ago
    Neither does the browser. The search engine does that. What should happen here is the search engine still crawls and indexes resources accessible by ftp, and the ftp:// url gets passed to the operating system to launch an appropriate native program. This happens for protocols like magnet:// and discord:// . Whether Google's search engine will continue to do so for ftp:// resources once Google's web browser no longer handles them remains to be seen.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      Worth noting here, if you open an FTP url in Safari on Mac, it will open the Finder and connect to the server there. Since we’re talking about utilities built into the OS, I’ve never had a problem with this.
    - Touche 7y ago
      Yeah, they won't, which is the point. Magnet links are not in Google results either. So having the browser support the protocol is pretty important in this case.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
shscs911 7y ago
Its not just Chrome, Firefox is planning to deprecate it as well (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/chrome-and-firefox-developers-aim-to-remove-support-for-ftp/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/chrome-and-fire...). Relevant Bugzilla ticket (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464)
- syshum 7y ago
  Not Surprising given Mozilla Stance to duplicate and support everything Google does in a effort to chase relevancy again Mozilla has lost the ability to be an independent protector of the Open Web
  - qzx_pierri 7y ago
    It's sad because they don't need to. Quantum is great, and you can remap your keybinds and use MaterialFox to get (almost) the exact same experience. Of course your average pleb won't go through this effort, but people need to know how good Firefox has gotten. And to the people who disagree: Firefox has always been great, but it often came with a lot of bugs and inconveniences. It didn't use to be as accessible. https://github.com/muckSponge/MaterialFox https://github.com/muckSponge/MaterialFox
    - fucking_tragedy 7y ago
      Have they fixed the issue with excessive resource consumption when using Firefox on a Retina MacBook?
      - insulanian 7y ago
        +1 I tried to switch to FF on multiple occasions, but it's a CPU hog on MacBook. Why is this issue ignored for so long?
        fucking_tragedy 7y ago
magicalist 7y ago
> It is obvious that the next FTP related headline we see from Google is when (not, if) they drop FTP links from all Google search results. There's no point them listing FTP urls in the results if their own browser can't connect to them. Why would it? Seems like the relevant model is file types the browser can't open, and there are lots of search results for those? https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en Lots of worry in this thread from people who apparently don't use ftp enough to know that your OS will already open ftp links for you. It's also a shame that the actual technical discussions are like half a page down.
- jackewiehose 7y ago
  You're mixing up file types and protocols. No, my OS won't open ftp links for me.
  - jacksproit 7y ago
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/272176/how-to-connect-to-ftp-servers-in-windows-without-extra-software/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/272176/how-to...
  - magicalist 7y ago
    > mixing up file types and protocols "relevant model" > my OS won't open ftp links for me. What OS? Because I bet you it does.
tripzilch 7y ago
It reminds me of when they bought the deja archive and wrecked usenet, mixing it up with google groups

waspleg 7y ago

True. They're very much the new Microsoft and Chrome is the new IE. But the general public also doesn't know what it used to be like. I logged in just to up vote you. I wish we had functioning anti-trust laws.

adaptbrian 7y ago
the US govt has google on points one and two currently. this has been building since the last round of FTC comments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GK8YUqQUHYqfmulKuDUwhYG2_GSQa2lM/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GK8YUqQUHYqfmulKuDUwhYG2_GS... although many including google are evading. they dont care for some reason: https://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-criticizes-tech-firms-evasive-testimony-requests-answers-questions https://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-criticiz...

tln 7y ago

> There are 100,000s of resources [...] major blow for information storage Thats a very small fraction of all the resources. > It is obvious that the next FTP related headline we see from Google is when (not, if) they drop FTP links from all Google search results. There's no point them listing FTP urls in the results if their own browser can't connect to them. This is a worthy concern, for sure. Although how do you know they haven't already done this? Do you have a search that shows ftp: urls? > The internet started off as a wonderful limitless information sharing platform, now it's just a shopping mall controlled by corporates. I'm trying to think of the period when the internet wasn't driven by corporate interests. Before the dot com boom, I suppose? When newsgroups thrived, and email servers roamed free without spam? That was fun but theres a fuckton more information on the internet now.

jsnell 7y ago
> Do you have a search that shows ftp: urls? Sure, searching for "rfc 1337 inurl:ftp" returns FTP urls for the top four results for me.
- tln 7y ago
  Thanks
- derefr 7y ago
  I wonder if any FTP was spoken by the spider to discover those resources, or whether those are just opaque FTP links discovered embedded in HTTP resources, that were not crawled further.
  - jsnell 7y ago
    They're crawled, and the full content is indexed. (You can see a text snippet, and some of the results aren't actually RFC 1337 but other RFCs referring to it).
  - tln 7y ago
    Yes, google has a cache of some FTP links, as found by GPs query. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TaTfcCqtrRwJ:ftp://ftp.scc.kit.edu/pub/rfc/bcp/bcp159.html+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TaTfcCq...

tootie 7y ago

Nah. Average consumers almost never touch ftp anymore. I'm a tech pro and even I haven't used ftp in years. Having ftp servers accessible from a browser is a fairly useless luxury at this point. Dedicated ftp clients are very easy to come by for anyone.

Touche 7y ago
Do dedicated ftp clients include crawling and indexing?
- cronix 7y ago
  I don't think I've ever come across a web search that led directly back to a ftp site. How much do they actually currently index ftp anyway?
- T-hawk 7y ago
  Neither does the browser. The search engine does that. What should happen here is the search engine still crawls and indexes resources accessible by ftp, and the ftp:// url gets passed to the operating system to launch an appropriate native program. This happens for protocols like magnet:// and discord:// . Whether Google's search engine will continue to do so for ftp:// resources once Google's web browser no longer handles them remains to be seen.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Worth noting here, if you open an FTP url in Safari on Mac, it will open the Finder and connect to the server there. Since we’re talking about utilities built into the OS, I’ve never had a problem with this.
  - Touche 7y ago
    Yeah, they won't, which is the point. Magnet links are not in Google results either. So having the browser support the protocol is pretty important in this case.
TeMPOraL 7y ago

shscs911 7y ago

Its not just Chrome, Firefox is planning to deprecate it as well (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/chrome-and-firefox-developers-aim-to-remove-support-for-ftp/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/chrome-and-fire...). Relevant Bugzilla ticket (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464)

syshum 7y ago
Not Surprising given Mozilla Stance to duplicate and support everything Google does in a effort to chase relevancy again Mozilla has lost the ability to be an independent protector of the Open Web
- qzx_pierri 7y ago
  It's sad because they don't need to. Quantum is great, and you can remap your keybinds and use MaterialFox to get (almost) the exact same experience. Of course your average pleb won't go through this effort, but people need to know how good Firefox has gotten. And to the people who disagree: Firefox has always been great, but it often came with a lot of bugs and inconveniences. It didn't use to be as accessible. https://github.com/muckSponge/MaterialFox https://github.com/muckSponge/MaterialFox
  - fucking_tragedy 7y ago
    Have they fixed the issue with excessive resource consumption when using Firefox on a Retina MacBook?
    - insulanian 7y ago
      +1 I tried to switch to FF on multiple occasions, but it's a CPU hog on MacBook. Why is this issue ignored for so long?
      - fucking_tragedy 7y ago

magicalist 7y ago

> It is obvious that the next FTP related headline we see from Google is when (not, if) they drop FTP links from all Google search results. There's no point them listing FTP urls in the results if their own browser can't connect to them. Why would it? Seems like the relevant model is file types the browser can't open, and there are lots of search results for those? https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en Lots of worry in this thread from people who apparently don't use ftp enough to know that your OS will already open ftp links for you. It's also a shame that the actual technical discussions are like half a page down.

jackewiehose 7y ago
You're mixing up file types and protocols. No, my OS won't open ftp links for me.
- jacksproit 7y ago
  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/272176/how-to-connect-to-ftp-servers-in-windows-without-extra-software/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/272176/how-to...
- magicalist 7y ago
  > mixing up file types and protocols "relevant model" > my OS won't open ftp links for me. What OS? Because I bet you it does.

tripzilch 7y ago

It reminds me of when they bought the deja archive and wrecked usenet, mixing it up with google groups