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ijabbott · (This post was last modified: 05-08-2021 09:18 PM by ijabbott.)

(05-08-2021 08:33 PM)BruceH Wrote:
(05-07-2021 12:07 PM)rprosperi Wrote: If you're using Windows, you can simply use File Explorer. Copy the ftp: url and paste it in File Explorer's address bar, it works fine.

No idea if this works in macOS Finder; I'd guess not, but would like to know if some Mac owner could give it a try.

On the latest Macos (Big Sur), pasting "ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/calculators/Prime/" into the address bar of Safari pops up an authentication dialog asking for a username and password to be entered or to connect as a guest. Choose guest and the ftp site is mounted as a network drive, and a Finder window opened. Files can be downloaded by drag and drop.

For the GNOME desktop's File browser ("Nautilus"), Clicking "+ Other Locations" (or local translation thereof) in the side bar brings up a "Connect to Server" box where you can enter a URL of various types, including FTP URLs. Then press "Connect" and login to the FTP site anonymously, and it will appear as a directory in the side bar. That requires the GVFS backends to be installed (GVFS = "GNOME Virtual FIle System"). If you also install the GVFS FUSE daemon (FUSE = "Filesystem in User Space"), it will also be mounted as a filesystem under the user's "$XDG_USER_DIR/gvfs" directory. E.g., HP's FTP site appears mounted as "/run/user/1000/gvfs/ftp:host=ftp.hp.com" for me (1000 is my local UID number). This allows access to files on the FTP site from the command line using the regular UNIX commands such as "cp" to copy files.