Freeloader Friday Download of the Week

Secure Transfers

We all know the Internet is rife with menacing threats, so why send your username and password through it unprotected? Too often we assume that good old FTP is safe. What we don't realize is that - particularly on others' unprotected wireless networks - your login credentials pass through unprotected.

Fetch

Fetch has been transferring files to and from Macs for almost as long as the FTP protocol has been around. You'll be happy to know, the running dog is getting an update to version 5. This limited release beta improves the interface, and introduces support for SFTP, a secure FTP protocol.

If you've not already been accepted to the limited beta test, you'll have to wait to get your hands on this FTP client. Fetch 4 is free to academic users, and cheap to the rest of us. No pricing has been announced for version 5.

Cyberduck

Now, for a beta you can use today, there's Cyberduck. This beta release also supports SFTP. The Open Source FTP client requires Panther and sports a clean interface and server bookmarking. Cyberduck brought home a 4 mouse rating from Macworld, pretty good for a free application.

Fugu

While Fetch came to us from Dartmouth College, the University of Michigan has an excellent free file transfer solution. We've recently looked at Fugu, but it's worth mentioning again while we're on the subject of secure file transfer. Fugu does SFTP via SSH encryption.

Make the Connection

If the terminal is more your style, you'll want this straightforward collection of AppleScripts to connect to Telnet, SSH, FTP and SFTP servers via the Terminal. This one should work on any flavor of OS X.

There you go. Whatever your client may be, now you can send those data packets out with confidence.

Brian

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