The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a software standard for transferring computer files between machines with widely different operating systems. It belongs to the application layer of the Internet protocol suite.
FTP is an 8-bit client-server protocol, capable of handling any type of file without further processing, such as MIME or Uuencode. However, FTP has extremely high latency; that is, the time between beginning the request and starting to receive the required data can be quite long, and a sometimes-lengthy login procedure is required.
