The program has been updated today which gave me the perfect incentive to review it here on Ghacks Technology News.

Cyberduck is an open source file transfer software that is available for Windows PCs and Apple Macintosh systems. It supports a wide variety of different protocols and even connects perfectly to several popular online services and cloud space providers. The program supports both ftp and sftp connections as well as WebDAV. In addition, it supports connections to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Windows Azure, Rackspace, Cloud Files and Google Docs.

The program displays all previously configured account in the main interface on startup. You can double-click on an account to connect to the service right away, edit existing accounts or create new ones. If you start the program for the first time, you are likely starting to add accounts first.

Just click on the plus icon in the main interface to add a new account to the program. Everything is configured in the first window that pops up. You select the desired protocol or service from the pulldown menu at the top, assign a custom name for the connection, add the server IP or hostname and username to the listing.

A click on More Options displays additional parameters that can be configured. You can assign a path, connection mode, encoding, the local folder and additional information. You will be asked for a password once you initiate the connection. The password can be saved if needed.

One of the features that WinSCP offers that Cyberduck lacks on first sight is a second file browser to transfer files more easily between the online or network storage and the local system. It is however possible to open multiple windows and drag and drop files or folders between windows. Server to server transfers, if supported by the servers, are now supported by the file transfer software.

Cyberduck offers many features that may not be apparent right away. Among the features are file synchronization options, Growl support, server access history, advanced SSH features, and interoperability.

Windows and Mac users can download the latest version of the software from the official website. The software will ask for a donation on close which you can simply close.

Regardless of that, some progress has been made in the past year on how files are shared between peers. The original file hosters all were using the same model. User A uploads the files to the servers of the file host, gets a link pointing to those files to share with other users.

Differences were usually only found in the limitations, mainly the maximum upload size, amount of allowed downloads of a file, retention on the server or download speeds.

The new breed of file sharing sites however make use of a different system to allow transfers between users. The main difference is the fact that those are direct transfers between the users, so that no data needs to be stored on the service’s servers. This reduces the bandwidth bill of the service considerably.

This method has advantages and disadvantages, just like any other service. The main advantage is the ability to directly send files to other users, without having to store the data on third party servers. That’s however also possible with other technologies like ftp, many instant messengers or IRC though. Those do require the installation of third party software on the other hand.

The main disadvantages are that both users need to be online for the transfer, that it has to be repeated if more than one user requests the file, and that the services make use of Flash to send and receive the files. Why is Flash bad for that? Because it has file size limitations. Users can upload files with a maximum size equal to their installed computer RAM. Receiving users can only receive files half the size of their actual RAM.

Finally, the majority of services make use of the UDP protocol, which may be blocked by restrictive firewalls and routers.

File Sharing Services

1. Jetbytes

jetbytes

Jetbytes offers a plain interface, that’s easy to use. It begins with the selection of a file to send to another user. The Choose File button opens a file browser where that file can be selected. It is suggested to put multiple files into one archive so that they can be send at once.

Jetfile will then display a url that the recipient needs to open. Once the url is opened the file transfer begins.

direct file sharing

File transfer speeds depend largely on the uploading capabilities of the sending computer, and the download speed of the receiving one.

2. Dushare

dushare

Dushare offers the same basic principle for transferring files as Jetshare, but adds several extra features on top of that. The process begins in the same way. The uploading user selects a file from the local computer system. It is now possible to add a password to the file, to protect it from users who spy on the network traffic.

The downloading user opens the url in the browser, and the transfer starts. A chat window is open, that can be used to chat while the file transfers.

Dushare is no longer available. The website returns a 404 found error.

3. XFiles

The Xfiles page is filled with ads, which may turn away some users immediately, considering that there are valid file sharing alternatives available.

The process works in the same way though. The first user selects a file, and gets a url that then needs to be shared with the downloading user.

4. iSendr

Another slick service that works exactly as the other services mentioned in the article. Pick a file, send the url to a friend so that the friend can download the file. Nothing more to say about this peer to peer file transfer service.

5. Files over Miles

files over miles

Files over miles is the last service in this category. It again offers to send files directly to other users.

All services are easy to use and offer the same functionality, with the exception of Dushare which adds password protection and chat on top of it.

These file sharing services are a solid alternative for sharing small (larger than the maximum email attachment size) to medium sized files directly with a single user. A major nuisance is the fact that the uploading user needs to use a different communication channel (e.g. email or IM) to send the file url to the downloading user.

Gftp has a very user-friendly interface that any user can understand without having to look at much documentation at all. The only downfall to Gftp is that it hasn’t been updated since 1/11/2008. Let’s take a look at this single-minded application.

Features

Gftp offers the user the following features:

• Supports FTP,  FTPS (Control Connection), HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, and FSH protocols.
• Supports FTP and HTTP proxy servers.
• Supports FXP.
• Bookmarks allow quick access to remote connections.
• Logging.
• Cache clearing.
• Remote chmod tool.
• Remote directory creation.
• Internationalization (numerous translations available).

Getting and installing

Installing Gftp is simple if you follow these steps:

1. Open your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “gftp” (no quotes).
3. Mark the Gftp entry for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

You can also install Gftp from the command line by issuing a command similar to:

sudo apt-get install gftp

Once installed you will find the Gftp entry in the Internet sub-menu of your Applications menu.

The interface

Figure 1

The interface for Gftp is as simple as it gets. As you can see (in Figure 1) the interface is a dual pane window that allows easy dragging and dropping of files from the local machine to the remote machine.

As you can see I have connected to an FTP server on my local LAN. To make the connection you simply enter the following information:

• Host: The address of the FTP server.
• Port: The port used for FTP on the host (if it is a standard port leave it blank).
• User: The username you need to connect.
• Password: The password used for the remote machine.

Once you have entered the information, click the Enter key to connect.

To move a file from one site to another you can do one of four things:

• Drag and drop the file or directory you want to transfer.
• Double click the file or directory you want to transfer.
• Select the file or directory and click the arrow button that points to the machine you want to transfer to.
• Select the file or directory and click Control-P.

Quick compare

Figure 2

One of the features I often use with Gftp is the Compare Windows tool. What this tool does is quickly compare the file listing on both the remote and the local sites and highlight all the files on the directory that are similar. This is a quick and easy way to know what you have already transferred to keep you from accidentally overwriting files.

To use this tool make sure you are connected to the remote site of your choice and then click on the Tools menu and select “Compare Windows”. After you click the tool you will instantly see the files that are similar are Not selected on both panes (see Figure 2). Say you need to send all the files on your current working local directory that have not already been copied to the remote site. To do this click Compare Windows and then just click right facing arrow to copy all files not already on the remote site. Easy file transfer.

Final thoughts

Gftp makes transferring files as simple as it gets in Linux. Of course you could always opt to use the the ftp command line to for a more bare-bones simplicity. But when you have an easy to user GUI interface, why bother with the command line. Right?

Fling is a file transfer software that can be used to transfer and backup files over a computer network and ftp. It’s two main uses are to backup files that are stored on a local computer system to computers in the network or to an ftp server located on the Internet.

The developers have added some other options that include backing up files between local hard drives, update a remote website over ftp or to automate transfers of files to an USB drive.

The program displays a wizard upon first start which will aid the user in setting up the first backup or transfer job. The user needs to enter some data after making the selection. The type of data depends largely on the selected job. Backing up data to a remote ftp server requires the ftp login credentials and IP while backing up files between two local hard drives requires only the selection of the folders involved.

The last step is included in every setup. It asks the user to select an update and scan option. Possibilities are manual updates, automatic updates when changes are detected (that means almost instantly), interval scans to check for changes occasionally and on demand folder scans.

It is possible to skip the wizard and configure the service manually. This adds a few additional option to the file transfer which could be interesting for experienced users.

It is for example possible to exclude files from being copied (using wildcards, e.g. *.exe), prevent the deletion of remotely hosted files or to delete local files after a successful file transfer.

Fling’s main advantage is that it is not complicated to setup. It takes roughly a minute to configure a backup or file transfer job in the software program. Fling is available for the Microsoft Windows operating system, more precisely for all major releases of the last years including Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, 2008 and Windows 7.

You might want to check out our article on Windows backup software to read about additional free programs that can be used to backup and transfer data.

N2ncopy is a tiny Windows computer software program that allows to copy or move multiple files from different locations to different targets. The application will display a tiny overlay window that can be moved around freely on the screen. The window is divided into a green and blue area. Files that should be moved or copied can be dragged into the green area while the blue area is reserved for the target directories.

A right-click on the tiny interface will open the main interface displaying all the files and targets that have been dragged and dropped into the application up to this point. It is possible to remove some or all of the files and targets again and to specify of the task should by copying or moving files.

The only other options are to define rules if files with identical names are encountered in the target directories. Choices are to either overwrite those files or to rename the new files automatically.

A click on the Do the task button will start the file copying process while a click on Return will display the small overlay window again that can be used to add additional files and targets to the program. The program uses less than 3 Megabytes of computer memory while running.

A window displaying the file copying progress will be shown during the file transfers as well as a status report at the end of the process indicating if it was completed successfully.

Rich Copy is a file transfer software that has been in internal use by Microsoft for quite some time. The developers have now made it available for public use. The file transfer software program adds many new features to Windows Explorer file transfers including parallel transfers (also called multithreaded transfers), pausing and resuming the file copying process and a plethora of additional options.

The main difference between Rich Copy and third party tools like TeraCopy is the missing Windows Explorer integration of Rich Copy. It is an external file transfer program with an unbelievable set of options. To name a few of the advanced options that are available:

• Set thread count and cache size for transfers as well as process priorities
• Set or remove file attributes automatically
• Selecting specific errors to immediately stop the copying process
• Include or exclude specific files from being copied specifying file names, file attributes and / or dates.
• Running commands before and after the file transfer
• Extensive file operating logging
• Different file transfer modes and additional copying restrictions based on security, size or time stamps

Rich Copy has been primarily been designed to speed up but also give more control to file transfers in the Windows operating system. Users who simply want to speed up the original Windows Explorer copying process are better of using file transfer software like Teracopy or Fast Copy which integrates itself nicely into Windows Explorer and replaces the original file transfer dialog.

A major difference between the two applications is the fact that Fast Copy does not hijack the original Windows copy, delete and move operations but comes only into play when the user selects the application to handle the transfers. This can be done by loading Fast Copy or adding Fast Copy entries to the right-click context menu. The option for the latter is provided in the program’s options.

Since the usage is not automatic using Fast Copy makes only sense in situations where the user has to copy many files and folders at once, for example when moving the contents of one hard drive to another. It simply takes about five to ten seconds to start the file transfer because the source and destination locations have to be added to the program manually.

The context menu entry is only adding the source location to the program but the destination would still have to be selected manually. Fast Copy uses parallel processing if the source and destination location are on different hard drives and a huge buffer if they are on the same. It comes with a lot of options that can be changed like the buffer size or actions to take if a file exists in the destination.

The command line options might make it usable for batch files that use file operations. It lacks a few of the features that TeraCopy comes with like a queue that offers options to skip files or pause the process.

Fast Copy in its current version can be used in batch files because of its command line parameters and to copy large amount of files. It does not work as a real transfer replacement for Windows and have to leave that field to Teracopy.