Mainstream browsers removing FTP support for no reason other than "we hate FTP and want it to die" hasn't helped much.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned ModLand FTP: ftp://ftp.modland.com

keenmaster486 wrote on 2024-09-03, 05:30:

Mainstream browsers removing FTP support for no reason other than "we hate FTP and want it to die" hasn't helped much.

Yeah, I've been using the standalone FileZilla client for years even before Firefox decided to arbitrarily remove FTP support. Not having it built into the browser is only a minor inconvenience for me because webbrowsers now have become too bloated for their own good.

I was going to say for the love of god don’t use Filezilla though! 🤣

Not sure if it’s changed but there was a huge uproar years ago over the developers insane reluctance to store passwords in encrypted form rather than plain text in the config file. He appeared to think that neither his nor any of his user’s machines would ever be compromised so it was all good.

I switched completely to WinSCP after that and never looked back.

hornet1990 wrote on 2024-09-03, 10:28:

I was going to say for the love of god don’t use Filezilla though! 🤣

Not sure if it’s changed but there was a huge uproar years ago over the developers insane reluctance to store passwords in encrypted form rather than plain text in the config file. He appeared to think that neither his nor any of his user’s machines would ever be compromised so it was all good.

Just learned yesterday that Tim Kosse, developer of FileZilla, has been quite unfriendly with retro systems: any request of previous versions for older OS will be discouraged with "upgrade to a more modern operating system."

hornet1990 wrote on 2024-09-03, 10:28:

I switched completely to WinSCP after that and never looked back.

Thanks! Visited its forum and saw our familiar soggi. 😉

Http://ftp.zx.net.nz has some old drivers, archives, mirrors and a web interface.
http://ftp.lanet.lv/ftp/ this one ditto.

edit: and have a linkback to this thread which gathered a few more, I found an open FTP with lots of software and drivers
Then also if you want a simple FTP prog that works at least back to XP there's this https://www.coffeecup.com/freestuff/

hornet1990 wrote on 2024-09-03, 10:28:

I was going to say for the love of god don’t use Filezilla though! 🤣

Not sure if it’s changed but there was a huge uproar years ago over the developers insane reluctance to store passwords in encrypted form rather than plain text in the config file. He appeared to think that neither his nor any of his user’s machines would ever be compromised so it was all good.

I'm a literal nobody on the internet I don't think anybody is getting my passwords, plaintext or not. You'd have to physically break into my home and use my PC right infront of my face for that.

Most of the FTPs I use I just select "Anonymous" as the logon type, I download things off public FTPs; not really interested in having accounts on private ones.

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-03, 12:30:

Just learned yesterday that Tim Kosse, developer of FileZilla, has been quite unfriendly with retro systems: any request of previous versions for older OS will be discouraged with "upgrade to a more modern operating system."

Well, I guess I'm not surprised. Though there's probably plenty of retro FTP clients that people keep mirroring over the years, I would hope. My current desktop is very modern, rolling release Void Linux with a 64-bit kernel and all that.

I used to use CuteFTP back in the day. I really liked the interface. But for some reason it's completely broken with modern FTP servers. It's probably incompatible with some new security protocol, I think.

x0zm_ wrote on 2019-04-24, 01:25:

A small but interesting server containing MIDI/Sound things from an Australian University. […]
Show full quote

A small but interesting server containing MIDI/Sound things from an Australian University.

ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/

A bunch of early to mid 90s soundbanks & MIDIs - including MT-32 and GUS specific files, along with a lot of MIDI files in general.

Also featured are some early 90s to early 2000s Vietnam & Japan releated files, including what appears to be software, books and other stuff. I haven't really looked at this, I just know it's there.

Does anyone have a mirror of ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/ ? I'm trying to find as many MT-32 midi files as I can, and I see that this FTP is down.

I really wish there was an internet archive equivalent of FTP servers. So so SO much data lost to "whelp, we can probably just shut this down, I don't think anyone is using it anymore." ... 😫

Does anyone know if any attempt has ever been made to form a data preservation group that would go around and contact the organizations that used to host FTPs, to see if the data was still accessible somewhere? I would imagine that in a lot of cases it may be. If the computer lab of some university just decided to turn the machine off 10 years ago and it is still sitting there, it could all be retrieved if they just turned it back on once.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-07, 21:32:

Does anyone have a mirror of ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/ ? I'm trying to find as many MT-32 midi files as I can, and I see that thi […]
Show full quote

x0zm_ wrote on 2019-04-24, 01:25:

A small but interesting server containing MIDI/Sound things from an Australian University. […]
Show full quote

A small but interesting server containing MIDI/Sound things from an Australian University.

ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/

A bunch of early to mid 90s soundbanks & MIDIs - including MT-32 and GUS specific files, along with a lot of MIDI files in general.

Also featured are some early 90s to early 2000s Vietnam & Japan releated files, including what appears to be software, books and other stuff. I haven't really looked at this, I just know it's there.

Does anyone have a mirror of ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/ ? I'm trying to find as many MT-32 midi files as I can, and I see that this FTP is down.

I really wish there was an internet archive equivalent of FTP servers. So so SO much data lost to "whelp, we can probably just shut this down, I don't think anyone is using it anymore." ... 😫

Does anyone know if any attempt has ever been made to form a data preservation group that would go around and contact the organizations that used to host FTPs, to see if the data was still accessible somewhere? I would imagine that in a lot of cases it may be. If the computer lab of some university just decided to turn the machine off 10 years ago and it is still sitting there, it could all be retrieved if they just turned it back on once.

Try...

.... ftp://ftp.edrdg.org/pub/Nihongo/00INDEX.html or ftp://ftp.net.usf.edu/pub/ftp.monash.edu.au/p … go/00INDEX.html

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-02-08, 12:03:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-07, 21:32:

Does anyone have a mirror of ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/ ? I'm trying to find as many MT-32 midi files as I can, and I see that thi […]
Show full quote

x0zm_ wrote on 2019-04-24, 01:25:

A small but interesting server containing MIDI/Sound things from an Australian University. […]
Show full quote

A small but interesting server containing MIDI/Sound things from an Australian University.

ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/

A bunch of early to mid 90s soundbanks & MIDIs - including MT-32 and GUS specific files, along with a lot of MIDI files in general.

Also featured are some early 90s to early 2000s Vietnam & Japan releated files, including what appears to be software, books and other stuff. I haven't really looked at this, I just know it's there.

Does anyone have a mirror of ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/ ? I'm trying to find as many MT-32 midi files as I can, and I see that this FTP is down.

I really wish there was an internet archive equivalent of FTP servers. So so SO much data lost to "whelp, we can probably just shut this down, I don't think anyone is using it anymore." ... 😫

Does anyone know if any attempt has ever been made to form a data preservation group that would go around and contact the organizations that used to host FTPs, to see if the data was still accessible somewhere? I would imagine that in a lot of cases it may be. If the computer lab of some university just decided to turn the machine off 10 years ago and it is still sitting there, it could all be retrieved if they just turned it back on once.

Try...

.... ftp://ftp.edrdg.org/pub/Nihongo/00INDEX.html or ftp://ftp.net.usf.edu/pub/ftp.monash.edu.au/p … go/00INDEX.html

Thank you for the links. Sadly, it doesn't appear to have the directory that contained midi files at that mirror.

I should have included the full address though, that was my mistake. The link I found in another VOGONS thread is: http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/midi.songs/MT-32/

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-08, 16:46:

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-02-08, 12:03:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-07, 21:32:

Does anyone have a mirror of ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/ ? I'm trying to find as many MT-32 midi files as I can, and I see that this FTP is down.

I really wish there was an internet archive equivalent of FTP servers. So so SO much data lost to "whelp, we can probably just shut this down, I don't think anyone is using it anymore." ... 😫

Does anyone know if any attempt has ever been made to form a data preservation group that would go around and contact the organizations that used to host FTPs, to see if the data was still accessible somewhere? I would imagine that in a lot of cases it may be. If the computer lab of some university just decided to turn the machine off 10 years ago and it is still sitting there, it could all be retrieved if they just turned it back on once.

Try...

.... ftp://ftp.edrdg.org/pub/Nihongo/00INDEX.html or ftp://ftp.net.usf.edu/pub/ftp.monash.edu.au/p … go/00INDEX.html

Thank you for the links. Sadly, it doesn't appear to have the directory that contained midi files at that mirror.

I should have included the full address though, that was my mistake. The link I found in another VOGONS thread is: http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/midi.songs/MT-32/

Try IA as the site seems to have been captured (it's where I got the mirror URLs from), and a collection of files does still exist there... **NOTE** - check above the MT-32 directory as well as there are way more files there as well

https://web.archive.org/web/19970515143925/ht … di.songs/MT-32/

or

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://ftp.mona … i.songs/MT-32/*

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-02-08, 20:32:

Try IA as the site seems to have been captured (it's where I got the mirror URLs from), and a collection of files does still exi […]
Show full quote

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-08, 16:46:

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2025-02-08, 12:03:

Try...

.... ftp://ftp.edrdg.org/pub/Nihongo/00INDEX.html or ftp://ftp.net.usf.edu/pub/ftp.monash.edu.au/p … go/00INDEX.html

Thank you for the links. Sadly, it doesn't appear to have the directory that contained midi files at that mirror.

I should have included the full address though, that was my mistake. The link I found in another VOGONS thread is: http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/midi.songs/MT-32/

Try IA as the site seems to have been captured (it's where I got the mirror URLs from), and a collection of files does still exist there... **NOTE** - check above the MT-32 directory as well as there are way more files there as well

https://web.archive.org/web/19970515143925/ht … di.songs/MT-32/

or

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://ftp.mona … i.songs/MT-32/*

Oh nice! Man, I feel dumb... I don't know why I didn't check IA for this. I guess I am so used to them not having FTP archives it just never occurred to me. Thank you! 😀

I didn't think that Internet Archive copied FTPs.

Those seem to be FTPs that had a http interface. But users have also put ftp archives in the regular files.