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Mailing lists / fpc-pascal / 2021-05

FTP support gone - switch to HTTP ?

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Michael Van Canneyt

Hello,

Mattias Gaertner pointed out that Chrome no longer supports FTP downloads.

I know that Firefox will follow suit really soon (if they haven't already). Since Edge now also uses Chromium, they will soon also have this disabled.

This wil surely cause problems for many users.

So I think we should start making the FTP server downloads available through HTTP(s) instead of FTP. I also think we should do this for 3.2.2. (the pages are auto-generated from some base URLS, so this should not be a lot of work)

It should be sufficient to have a virtual host that points to the ftp directory of the current FPC's ftp dir.

Charlie, is this an option for you ?

If you want, I can create a new DNS:

downloads.freepascal.org

which you can then use to set up the virtual host. I don't think HTTPS is a necessity, but if you prefer that is also good of course...

When that is done, the links on the download page can be switched to http(s).

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt
to Michael Van Canneyt

Apologies, typed the wrong email alias.
This was meant to go to the core list.

The problem is real, though... Consider it a heads up :-)

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote 36 lines
Hello, Mattias Gaertner pointed out that Chrome no longer supports FTP downloads. I know that Firefox will follow suit really soon (if they haven't already). Since Edge now also uses Chromium, they will soon also have this disabled. This wil surely cause problems for many users. So I think we should start making the FTP server downloads available through HTTP(s) instead of FTP. I also think we should do this for 3.2.2. (the pages are auto-generated from some base URLS, so this should not be a lot of work) It should be sufficient to have a virtual host that points to the ftp directory of the current FPC's ftp dir. Charlie, is this an option for you ? If you want, I can create a new DNS: downloads.freepascal.org which you can then use to set up the virtual host. I don't think HTTPS is a necessity, but if you prefer that is also good of course... When that is done, the links on the download page can be switched to http(s). Michael. _______________________________________________ fpc-pascal maillist - https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Karoly Balogh
to Michael Van Canneyt: Mattias Gaertner pointed out that Chrome no longer supports FTP downloads. I know that…

Hi,

Michael Van Canneyt wrote 10 lines
I know that Firefox will follow suit really soon (if they haven't already). Since Edge now also uses Chromium, they will soon also have this disabled. This wil surely cause problems for many users. So I think we should start making the FTP server downloads available through HTTP(s) instead of FTP. I also think we should do this for 3.2.2. (the pages are auto-generated from some base URLS, so this should not be a lot of work)

Agreed. This is something I wanted to raise already, but somehow it always fell between the cracks.

It should be sufficient to have a virtual host that points to the ftp directory of the current FPC's ftp dir. Charlie, is this an option for you ?

Certainly. See below.

Show quoted text 7 lines
If you want, I can create a new DNS: downloads.freepascal.org which you can then use to set up the virtual host. I don't think HTTPS is a necessity, but if you prefer that is also good of course...

I think HTTPS is certainly a good practice in 2021, and it's easy to set up with LetsEncrypt. So that shouldn't be a problem.

When that is done, the links on the download page can be switched to http(s).

Yes, this is something I wanted to do Real Soon Now(tm). I'd actually keep FTP enabled, as it doesn't hurt anything and it's still a thing for retro downloads. But I planned to also offer HTTP and HTTPS.

The problem is, I also wanted to migrate away from the old FTP host machine in the meantime, as that had disk I/O errors... but I never finished setting up the new VM. I can attend to this this weekend. Is that too late for 3.2.2, and we need it earlier? Maybe I can squeeze it in during the week.

Charlie

Graeme Geldenhuys
to Karoly Balogh: Agreed. This is something I wanted to raise already, but somehow it always fell between…
Karoly Balogh wrote
I'd actually keep FTP enabled, as it doesn't hurt anything and it's still a thing for retro downloads.

Not just "retro" but a more efficient and faster protocol for file downloads. Unfortunately the whole world is going HTTP crazy and thinks everything should go over it, including the kitchen sink.

So yes, it would be nice if FTP access can still be left in place.

Regards,
Graeme

Michael Van Canneyt
to Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote 9 lines
On 17/05/2021 3:13 pm, Karoly Balogh via fpc-pascal wrote: > I'd actually keep > FTP enabled, as it doesn't hurt anything and it's still a thing for retro > downloads. Not just "retro" but a more efficient and faster protocol for file downloads. Unfortunately the whole world is going HTTP crazy and thinks everything should go over it, including the kitchen sink.

I'm old enough to remember the time when I used the NCSA and netscape browsers with the Gopher protocol. Apparently it still exists, on about 300 sites :-)

Michael.

Tomas Hajny
to Michael Van Canneyt
Michael Van Canneyt wrote 19 lines
On Tue, 18 May 2021, Graeme Geldenhuys via fpc-pascal wrote: > > On 17/05/2021 3:13 pm, Karoly Balogh via fpc-pascal wrote: >> I'd actually keep >> FTP enabled, as it doesn't hurt anything and it's still a thing for >> retro >> downloads. > > Not just "retro" but a more efficient and faster protocol for file > downloads. > Unfortunately the whole world is going HTTP crazy and thinks > everything should > go over it, including the kitchen sink. I'm old enough to remember the time when I used the NCSA and netscape browsers with the Gopher protocol. Apparently it still exists, on about 300 sites :-)

I'm old enough to remember that standalone Gopher clients existed well before NCSA Mosaic. ;-) Fortunately, there's plenty of standalone FTP clients including those with GUI add-ons, we can point out this fact in our release communication as well. Out of those mentioned on the respective Wikipedia page
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_client_software), WinSCP (MS Windows), gFTP (Linux) and Cyberduck (OSX and MS Windows) might be worth mentioning (to cover the major platforms); possibly also FAR Manager with its FTP plugin (MS Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX) to extend the coverage to *BSD as well (although that's rather TUI than GUI).

Tomas

Sven Barth
to Tomas Hajny

Tomas Hajny via fpc-pascal schrieb am
Di., 18. Mai 2021, 11:44:

Show quoted text 32 lines
On 2021-05-18 10:38, Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal wrote: > On Tue, 18 May 2021, Graeme Geldenhuys via fpc-pascal wrote: > >> >> On 17/05/2021 3:13 pm, Karoly Balogh via fpc-pascal wrote: >>> I'd actually keep >>> FTP enabled, as it doesn't hurt anything and it's still a thing for >>> retro >>> downloads. >> >> Not just "retro" but a more efficient and faster protocol for file >> downloads. >> Unfortunately the whole world is going HTTP crazy and thinks >> everything should >> go over it, including the kitchen sink. > > I'm old enough to remember the time when I used the NCSA and netscape > browsers > with the Gopher protocol. Apparently it still exists, on about 300 > sites :-) I'm old enough to remember that standalone Gopher clients existed well before NCSA Mosaic. ;-) Fortunately, there's plenty of standalone FTP clients including those with GUI add-ons, we can point out this fact in our release communication as well. Out of those mentioned on the respective Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_client_software), WinSCP (MS Windows), gFTP (Linux) and Cyberduck (OSX and MS Windows) might be worth mentioning (to cover the major platforms); possibly also FAR Manager with its FTP plugin (MS Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX) to extend the coverage to *BSD as well (although that's rather TUI than GUI).

I don't think we need to mention any specific clients (and why did your list not include Filezilla? :P )

Regards,
Sven

Henry Vermaak
to Sven Barth
Sven Barth wrote
I don't think we need to mention any specific clients (and why did your list not include Filezilla? :P )

Because FileZilla bundles adware when you download from the homepage? Would actually be good to warn _against_ using it.

Henry

Bo Berglund
to Henry Vermaak
Henry Vermaak wrote 9 lines
On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 11:50, Sven Barth via fpc-pascal wrote: > I don't think we need to mention any specific clients (and why did your list not include Filezilla? :P ) Because FileZilla bundles adware when you download from the homepage? Would actually be good to warn _against_ using it. Henry

Do you mean that when you use Filezilla to download a file you also get adware files transfered? Never ever seen that.
I have used Filezilla successfully for many-many years and it works very well IMO.

Bo Berglund Developer in Sweden
Tomas Hajny
to Bo Berglund
Bo Berglund wrote 20 lines
On Tue, 18 May 2021 16:20:29 +0100, Henry Vermaak via fpc-pascal wrote: > On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 11:50, Sven Barth via fpc-pascal > wrote: > >> I don't think we need to mention any specific clients (and why did >> your list not include Filezilla? :P ) > > Because FileZilla bundles adware when you download from the homepage? > Would actually be good to warn _against_ using it. > > Henry Do you mean that when you use Filezilla to download a file you also get adware files transfered? Never ever seen that. I have used Filezilla successfully for many-many years and it works very well IMO.

No, it was related to Filezilla installation
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileZilla#Bundled_adware_issues). Please, stop discussing specific FTP clients on this list - if you want to continue, use fpc-other.

Tomas
(one of FPC mailing list administrators)