Oct 11
Since switchin to Mac, I’ve been looking for a good FTP program that will get the job done with features similar to that of FTP programs that I used on my PC – Ipswitch’s WS_FTP Pro, CuteFTP, etc. After searching for quite awhile, it was obvious that there were 3 leaders.
- Fetch – Shareware: $25.00
- Transmit – Shareware: $29.95
- Cyberduck – Free
Seeing that I just spent over $2G’s on my new MacBook Pro, I decided to go with the freeware version of Cyberduck to start, and I must admit that thus far, I’m very happy with it. It really is plain and simple, and took no time to learn or get used to. I installed it and immediately was able to FTP to my site and transfer files. Some of the best features of the Cyberduck FTP Client for Mac are:
- Browser – Simply open and FTP site and browse the documents just as you would on your Mac. You also have the option to use QuickLook, the handy new feature that is built into OSX Leopard.
- WebURL – If you specify the corresponding website when setting up your FTP connection, you’ll be able to open up the corresponding web URL without having to open your browser and type in the address. Handy, especially when editing and working with non-dynamic HTML based sites.
- Integration – Cyberduck allows integration into the OSX platform, allowing Cyberduck to become the default handler for all FTP/SFTP connections.
- Activity Window – Gives a current status of all open transfers.
- Keychain – Stores all passwords in the System Keychain.
- Amazon S3 – Allows easy connection and access to Amazon’s S3 file storage service. Great for backing up files.
- Synchronization – One of the best features, this allows you to directly synchronize local and remote directories, and prior to synchronizing, Cyberduck will display a listing of affected files and directories so that you can see what will be changed/updated prior to starting the sync.
