Web Browser FTP

Now that you have seen how to use a program like Fetch to do anonymous FTP, we'll let you in on a little secret: we can often use the Web Browser to do anonymous FTP downloads! Let's give another example of an anonymous FTP session to a software archive, but this time we will use the Web Browser.

In your second Web Browser window, enter the following URL address:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/

You should get a screen display that looks something like the following:


Now, we are going to retrieve a set of "Frequently Asked Questions" (usually known as FAQs) on game software for Macintosh computers.

  1. Scroll down this screen (the list is very long) until the entry "macintosh/", and double-click to open this directory.

  2. Scroll down the resulting screen until the entry "games-faq" and double-click to open.

  3. Your browser should now display the text of the FAQ.

  4. Save the text being displayed on the screen into a file on your computer by choosing "Save As" from under the "File" browser menu and giving the name "games-faq" and the directory where you want to store it in the dialog window that pops up.
Notice that the URL address being displayed by your browser at this point is

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/macintosh/games-faq

Therefore, we could have come directly to this file by entering this URL address immediately at the beginning.

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