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

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#251

Post by detaro » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

brokensegue wrote: post #247

rocky1138 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FTP link can still use xdg-open or whatever the local equivalent is to spawn the user's FTP app and connect to that URL. I think that's how most URLs with unsupported (by the browser) protocols are handled nowadays anyway.

What average user has a ftp app installed?

On desktop, almost everyone. Windows Explorer speaks FTP, MacOS finder speaks FTP, I think all major Linux desktop file managers do.

(Of course there's no guarantee they'll keep support for it, based on similar arguments)

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#252

Post by nyxxie » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

A lot of Google hate in this thread. Normally I'm on board, but I think you guys are making a big deal out of nothing.

When I click magnet:// links, my bittorrent client opens. When I click slack:// links, my slack client opens. With this change, when I click ftp:// my ftp client will open. Chrome has simply decided it only wants to spend resources focusing on http:// and make the unrelated protocols separate. I see 0 problem with this, it's not like they're killing the only or even the most popular ftp client out there. We should all be using sftp anyways...

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#253

Post by tln » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

The_rationalist wrote: post #173

iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #142

Good. An easy feature for competitor browsers to implement.

Firefox used to support FTP too and removed support for it far before chrome.

Source?

I just opened ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ in firefox 68.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#254

Post by shscs911 » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #221

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…

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

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#255

Post by cronix » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #250

tootie wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do dedicated ftp clients include crawling and indexing?

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?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#256

Post by hedora » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #182

jbverschoor wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary. It’s a data only with maybe a motd. plenty of space to put ads. Especially if you’re looking for a driver

This is an amusing thread. FTP in the browser typically looks something like this https://imgur.com/20ooI9f Plenty of space for ads. HTTP is basically FTP with ads. Funny thought. Imagine if, to this day, the internet consisted of pretty much that. You go to ftp://nytimes.com and it just has a directory structure that consists of yyyy/mm/dd and the file names where things like statement-from-chinese-ambassador-to-aus…

You could write native apps on top of your proposed directory layouts, and it would be better than whatever people do today.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#257

Post by OrgNet » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

nyxxie wrote: post #252

A lot of Google hate in this thread. Normally I'm on board, but I think you guys are making a big deal out of nothing. When I click magnet:// links, my bittorrent client opens. When I click slack:// links, my slack client opens. With this change, when I click ftp:// my ftp client will open. Chrome has simply decided it only wants to spend resources focusing on http:// and make the unrelated protocols separate. I see…

Do they index magnet and slack links?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#258

Post by tln » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #240

tln wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 k…

> 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.

Thanks

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#259

Post by adaptbrian » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

waspleg wrote: post #227

Jaruzel wrote: post #221

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…

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.

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_GS... although many including google are evading. they dont care for some reason: https://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-criticiz...

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#260

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #178

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.

Can you please explain to me why you believe optimising against power users is making the internet worse. I tend to agree with you, but would you mind fleshing this out a bit. Or, if you've written this before please point to it.

I wanted to but I'm AFK for most of today. I'll try to comment some more later today, and I'll likely blog on this in the future.

EDIT: 'danShumway and 'ajnin together essentially summarized my thinking here.

Web is built and maintained by technically proficient people so it needs them to be comfortable. There is no unified group of "power users"; everyone doing something regularly becomes a "power user" in that context to the extent they are able to. If you remove their ability to grow, you're condemning them to wasting their time and reducing utility of the web for them.