As a web developer, I have a persistent need for an FTP client in order to upload web content to my site. When I started working on Francisco Charrua and Web Hosting Montreal, CuteFTP was my tool of choice. Then my ranting about always having to re-login earned me a referral to SmartFTP. I reluctantly installed it on my development PC. After a few customisations and realizing that the expiration of the trial period didn't completely disable it, I switched. Being able to drag and drop files and folders into my web site was a very welcome enhancement.
Recently (April 2004), I received a support email from a Web Hosting Canada client with questions about how her contacts could access her site through FTP. One of the questions was about how those without FTP clients could upload and download files through Internet Explorer.
My heart sank as I prepared to gather a list of limitations these people would face. I opened an instance of Internet Explorer and typed ftp://domain.com. I was prompted to enter a user name and password through a pop-up window.
After waiting a while for the login process to finish I found myself with a desktop view of the files and folders in my client's website. For the sake of being brief, I will simply state that I was able to do most of the things that I can while browsing through the files on my own computer.
Right-clicking on any file or folder, then selecting properties allows you to
change the permissions, just like chmod.
As I replied to my client's email, I couldn't help but think that all those people
without an FTP client who needed to use IE, in fact, did have an FTP client.