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"FTP" is an acronym, like so much else on the web. It stands for "File Transfer Protocol," and is perhaps the most used way to move files around Internet, at least outside of HTTP. Using FTP you can upload and download files to a remove FTP server, and also perform a number of basic file administration tasks such as changing names and permissions.
To use FTP, you'll need an FTP Client – a program that uses the protocol to "talk" to a FTP server. Most operating systems have at least a basic command-line FTP client. It's handy to know how to use a command-line FTP client in case you ever need to use FTP but don't have a more modern program available for some reason.
Using the command line FTP client
We'll assume that you're using some version of windows – but if not don't worry, the same basic commands and operations should work on Mac or Linux machines. The first step is to open a command window – you can do this by going to the Start menu and choosing "Run...", then entering "cmd" (short for command) – this will bring up a dos window.
Now, type "ftp [server]" where "[server]" is the IP address or domain name of a server you have access to. If there is an FTP server running at that address, you'll usually be asked for a username and password. After entering the appropriate info, you should see an ftp prompt. You can then enter various FTP commands to do what you need to do, for example:
It is much more common to use a GUI (graphical user interface) based FTP client these days. There are many, many versions of this software available. We heartily recommend Filezilla which is free, open source, and available on many platforms.
Often these programs have basic "bookmarking" type functionality that allow you to store the address and login information for the FTP servers that you work with, which can be a real time saver. They may also integrate with your operating system in various ways, or allow you to use other types of protocols such as SSH and SFTP to accomplish the same sort of tasks as FTP, often more securely.
We can't cover all the different kinds of FTP clients that exist, there's far, far too many. However a very common implementation of an FTP client includes a two-column window, showing local (files on your computer) on the left, and the remote files (the server you're connected to) on the right. Usually double-click on files will upload them or download them, while double-click directories change to that folder. Often you can also drag and drop files as well.
Text vs. Binary Transfer Mode
Most clients will have an ability to transfer files as either text (or ASCII) files or binary files. This is a little misleading, as of course text files are binary files. Regardless, most ftp clients can also automatically detect what kind of transfer to use, and generally this works fine. However if you transfer a file and it ends up being garbled or corrupted, you may want to try re-transferring it using one or the other mode and see if that works better.
About Security
FTP is not considered security. This is because all of the data being transferred (including login data) is not encrypted - meaning if someone can listen, you could be at risk. For this reason, many web hosting companies actually block "regular" FTP. You can however use SFTP which works the same as regular old school FTP - but uses the SSH (secure socket shell) protocol to encrypt the entire connection. Generally, it works the same as FTP, and is recommended.