Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#131

Post by webreac » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:36 AM UTC

weinzierl wrote: post #123

userbinator wrote: post #66

Considering that Google (search) still lists plenty of FTP results, many of which have been extremely useful to me, this seems like another move to bully the Internet into what Google wants it to be. Will it start removing those results, effectively censoring another huge chunk of the Internet? It's already hard enough to find older/more obscure information, and FTP sites are more likely to be in that category. Also,…

There was a time when www was just a part of the Internet and we had www search and ftp search engines. The one I used to use was called "ftpsearch" and the only thing (besides the name) I remember is that it used to say "This server is located in Trondheim" on the front page. A quick web search turns out that it still seems to exist in some form [1]. Unfortunately it apparently doesn't really work anymore. Maybe it'…

Xarchie for me

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#132

Post by al_form2000 » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:43 AM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #121

paulryanrogers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could have been said of Gopher. FTP is typically insecure and painful to use with it's varying port maps. Transferring files over HTTP or more modern protocols is the future.

The same was said of Gopher. When Mozilla dropped support for the protocol in Firefox 4.0, there was a brief outcry, followed by silence as everyone realized that the protocol had been effectively unused for decades already.

Except ftp is alive.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#133

Post by elcomet » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:43 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #66

Considering that Google (search) still lists plenty of FTP results, many of which have been extremely useful to me, this seems like another move to bully the Internet into what Google wants it to be. Will it start removing those results, effectively censoring another huge chunk of the Internet? It's already hard enough to find older/more obscure information, and FTP sites are more likely to be in that category. Also,…

> everyone knows FTP is plaintext

You mean no one knows that FTP is plaintext except a minority of users which happens to be on HN.

Google is optimizing its browser for the majority, chrome is not a power-user browser. Maybe they'll add an option to enable ftp or something.

> drivers, which I'd say are a significant part of FTP use

I'm not sure how that's true. Every time I used FTP, it was not for drivers. All the drivers I downloaded were over http(s), from constructor websites.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#134

Post by izacus » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:43 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #90

clouddrover wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this seems like another move to bully the Internet into what Google wants it to be Bully them back. Don't use Google search and don't use Chrome.

Easier said than done, especially when most of the population doesn't care either because they're too young or too nontechnical; actually, I already don't use Chrome, but their search (which still shows FTP sites...) is, despite slowly getting worse too, still giving a wider breadth of sites most of the time. Bing and DDG help fill in the gaps.

What do you mean? It's very easy to install an FTP client and even in heyday, noone sane ever used a browser for FTP access anyway.

These kind of comments are so strange... why do you want Google to own your FTP client instead of having an independent one?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#135

Post by tannhaeuser » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #90

clouddrover wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this seems like another move to bully the Internet into what Google wants it to be Bully them back. Don't use Google search and don't use Chrome.

Easier said than done, especially when most of the population doesn't care either because they're too young or too nontechnical; actually, I already don't use Chrome, but their search (which still shows FTP sites...) is, despite slowly getting worse too, still giving a wider breadth of sites most of the time. Bing and DDG help fill in the gaps.

IE was superseeded by Firefox in the early 00's at scale, and there's no reason to assume Chrome can't equally be replaced by FF or another browser today. FF got a little help from the EU by requiring MS not to bundle IE with Windows back then and list browser choices for download on install; I think the same would work well on Android today (and in general with Google services such as maps/navigation, email, and search).

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#136

Post by llarsson » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 8:00 AM UTC

Volt wrote: post #111

paulryanrogers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could have been said of Gopher. FTP is typically insecure and painful to use with it's varying port maps. Transferring files over HTTP or more modern protocols is the future.

>The same could have been said of Gopher. I don't think Chrome ever supported Gopher, but if some other browser removed something that worked fine before I wouldn't like it either.

Firefox did remove its support for it, but the support could easily be added back with an extension.

I am more worried about the very realistic that that Google would be dropping FTP from search results, seeing as how their users won't be able to open them in the Google browser.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#137

Post by thrwyway9448 » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 8:05 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #66

Considering that Google (search) still lists plenty of FTP results, many of which have been extremely useful to me, this seems like another move to bully the Internet into what Google wants it to be. Will it start removing those results, effectively censoring another huge chunk of the Internet? It's already hard enough to find older/more obscure information, and FTP sites are more likely to be in that category. Also,…

>Will it start removing those results, effectively censoring another huge chunk of the Internet?

speaking as an evil overlord, the most illegal extension of Google's search monopoly would be to redirect those results through Google Drive in a way that forces users to go through Google Drive to see and access the full link or download any of its contents.

By the way, Google, would you like me to apply as a product manager (I'm very evil), or are you still doing the don't be evil thing? Any Google product managers reading this, specifically, would you welcome me as your evil colleague, so we can do evil and wrong things together, illegally extending Google's monopoly and closing off the web and making it worse for everyone? Team fit is very important for me, I don't know if it's the right environment for me. Like I said my only requirement is a very evil workplace, with lots of evil colleagues who have the worst intentions and actively sneer at users. I'm like that - would I fit in?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#138

Post by izacus » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 8:05 AM UTC

takeda wrote: post #70

pedrocx486 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Explorer can navigate (and transfer files) on FTPs. Type "ftp://ip.addr.of.ftp" in explorer and you're in. :-)

That's because it shares code base with IE, a web browser. Here we are talking about removing FTP from a browser.

No, actually the Explorer FTP support doesn't come from a browser at all. It's actually the other way around - IE handed off FTP handling to Explorer.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#139

Post by kuschku » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 8:09 AM UTC

clhodapp wrote: post #126

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP has nothing broken to fix.

They do though: 1) They are distributing executables to their users over a MITM-able channel. That is not acceptable. 2) A bunch of their users will have a much tougher time downloading their drivers when Chrome stops supporting FTP.

The drivers are cryptographically signed so the MitM-able channel is absolutely irrelevant.

The users will just have to stop using Chrome. Supporting Google software is always just a pain in the ass (and I've gotta know as developer of Android apps)

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#140

Post by kuschku » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 8:10 AM UTC

rrdharan wrote: post #45

Someone1234 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is progress though. FTP is insecure, and worse still it breaks the security model of HTTPS (see article for more info). Plus additional code paths could be sources of bugs/exploits, particularly old/rarely updated ones.

Moreover it's not implausible (I'd wager it's actually likely) that HP and other websites still relying on FTP will be pressured to actually fix their sites and switch to something more secure once Chrome drops support.

They'll switch to links which require proper cookies and referers to be set making them impossible to wget. As they always do.

Now that's so much better and more secure!