If you've ever tried to share a large number of files over the Internet, you've no doubt noticed that it is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Sure you can use MSN messenger to send things… One file at a time. You could email, but that's slow and limited by the size of your mailbox. Create a website? Doesn't seem worth the effort, and besides what if you want to receive files as well as share them? What if you want to make several directory's worth of your files available to yourself over the Internet while you are traveling? You could use remote desktop software, but that typically has anemic file transfer options and slow performance. What's the solution? Why FTP of course! What is FTP? FTP simply stands for File Transfer Protocol. As you might guess, it's a method of transferring data over a network or the Internet. As far as basic operations are concerned, it's very similar to HTTP or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the protocol that brings you your daily diet of (PCstats) web pages. It requires a server to serve the information, and client computers must connect to the server at the correct port, provide the correct credentials and be using software that can understand the data to be transferred.