Subj : strange things, {at}synchronet sites
To   : August Abolins
From : Rob Swindell
Date : Sun Nov 08 2020 22:52:41

  Re: strange things, {at}synchronet sites
  By: August Abolins to Rob Swindell on Mon Nov 09 2020 05:46 am

 > Hi Rob!
 >
 > 08 Nov 20 19:44, you wrote to me:
 >
 >  RS> Modern browsers will no longer render (display) files they download
 >  RS> via FTP:
 >  RS> https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6199005675520000
 >
 > Thanks. And thanks for the Firefox reference.  What's the big concern that
 > prompted to disable it?

For most of us, there's no major concern. However, bad actors have, over the years and decades, used ftp as a tool in their acts. They choose FTP because it wasn't designed very well and thus it's easier (than HTTPS, especially) to either compromise or utilize in root-kits or other methods of spreading their ill will to other systems.

 > I read briefly the catch-all-word "security". What
 > can go terribly wrong using FTP from the browser?

There are constant security issues in the Internet-connected world. It's a battle being fought substantially by the browser software developers. And eliminating ancient badly designed protocols makes their job (security battle) easier.

 > Meanwhile, I have the setting: networking.ftp.enable = true  ..in FF 82.0.2

Yeah, but "ftp.enable" is different than "ftp.render" (I don't actually know if there's such a setting, but I'm just explaining that FTP support is different than actually parsing and displaying HTML files that are downloaded via FTP). It was a cool feature (the rendering of downloaded HTML) in browsers for 20 years, but that era is over. Hopefully we'll retain the ability to simply download files via FTP for a while longer.
-- 
                                            digital man

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