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Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

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Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#211

Post by nexuist »

tim58 wrote: post #50
morpheuskafka wrote: post #8

I'm personally fine with this. FTP is a different protocol, just like BitTorrent. It's not part of the modern web, so it's just another loose end to tie up. Even though it will be around for a while, it's not relevant to Chrome's user audience/usecase.

I'm not fine with this. I'm of the mindset that code written 20 years ago should run today. This is a breaking change on a critical piece of internet infrastructure. Google, by nature of operating the most popular web browser, has a moral obligation to the community to provide a stable environment. There are something like 10^9 webpages out there. How many of these will become less accessible because of this change?…

> Many well maintained webpages will have to expend resources to migrate off ftp

Really, though? Are there any examples of any web pages that are strictly available from FTP instead of HTTP? If so, why? Isn’t HTTP made specifically for the purpose of transporting hypertext? Why use another, more general protocol when you can use the one made specifically for your use case?

I’m sure there’s good stuff on FTP still. I really, really doubt people are throwing SPAs and PWAs on FTP servers though.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#212

Post by roblabla »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #198
cies wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe they'll add an option to enable ftp or something. I guess not. More likely there'll be plugin to add this functionality back.

Chrome addons are not capable of doing FTP.

Really? Given there are a chrome apps capable of doing ssh[0], I'd be very surprised if FTP is not implementable.

[0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iodihamcpbpeioajje...

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#213

Post by Karunamon »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #149
untog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm of the mindset that code written 20 years ago should run today. I'm of the mindset that it should be possible to rub code written 20 years ago, but not always the same way you run code written more recently. Emulation, virtual machines etc all allow access to old work without hobbling future development with backwards compatibility concerns (see: Windows). In this case, there are plenty of free and open source…

A large number of academic labs share data by hosting it over FTP. You can harp on about better methods or whatever but these people do not care and don't have time/energy to start caring.

Can’t Chrome just hand the ftp:// link over to a dedicated client?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#214

Post by buildbuildbuild »

nexuist wrote: post #211
tim58 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not fine with this. I'm of the mindset that code written 20 years ago should run today. This is a breaking change on a critical piece of internet infrastructure. Google, by nature of operating the most popular web browser, has a moral obligation to the community to provide a stable environment. There are something like 10^9 webpages out there. How many of these will become less accessible because of this change?…

> Many well maintained webpages will have to expend resources to migrate off ftp Really, though? Are there any examples of any web pages that are strictly available from FTP instead of HTTP? If so, why? Isn’t HTTP made specifically for the purpose of transporting hypertext? Why use another, more general protocol when you can use the one made specifically for your use case? I’m sure there’s good stuff on FTP still. I…

I scrape municipal data sources of food and building code violations for a side project, much of the data is only available over FTP. I discovered several other cities’ data URLs by searching Google’s FTP index.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#216

Post by stickfigure »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #197
TeMPOraL wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is optimizing its browser for the majority, chrome is not a power-user browser. That is a problem. We have browser engine duopoly, and really everyone is doing whatever Google wants anyway. So as they're optimizing against power users, they're making the whole web much worse.

Its a strange thing how co-incident "optimizing for the majority" is with "killing open standards" and "Google specific features" A real strange thing... Not to worry though, I'm sure Google is just doing it for everyone's best interests, like the charitable organization for humanity that they are.

This is silly.

FTP is an awful protocol and there are other perfectly fungible open standard replacements for it, like HTTP/HTTPS. FTP dates from the era before NAT and firewalls and makes a bunch of problematic design choices, like having the server establish a separate port connection to the client (or vice versa, for passive mode) to transfer the file. It's super chatty, requiring multiple waits for response, and therefore slow. There's no length check, so if your socket gets closed you silently save a half-finished file.

FTP should just die off.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#217

Post by throwaway2048 »

roblabla wrote: post #212
throwaway2048 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome addons are not capable of doing FTP.

Really? Given there are a chrome apps capable of doing ssh[0], I'd be very surprised if FTP is not implementable. [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iodihamcpbpeioajje...

That uses NaCl, so while what I said is not accurate, NaCl appears to have no future.

https://blog.chromium.org/2017/05/goodbye-pnacl-hello-webass...

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#218

Post by t34543 »

OrgNet wrote: post #128
weinzierl wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Ftpsearch.ntnu.no was the one I used to use

I adored this service. I used it many, many times.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#219

Post by t34543 »

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,…

I’m really unhappy with Chromes roadmap as of late. Particularly their effort to kill the URL. At one point Chrome was the gold standard and I think it’s gotten to their head.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#220

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #217
roblabla wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Given there are a chrome apps capable of doing ssh[0], I'd be very surprised if FTP is not implementable. [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iodihamcpbpeioajje...

That uses NaCl, so while what I said is not accurate, NaCl appears to have no future. https://blog.chromium.org/2017/05/goodbye-pnacl-hello-webass...

It uses NaCl but that's not necessary; it just needs the chrome.socket API, which allows arbitrary TCP and UDP services to be built. There is no reason one couldn't implement FTP or SSH with it in JS.

https://developer.chrome.com/apps/socket

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