14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest changes coming to users of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox in a future update is support for FTP removed completely.
While at this point the two companies are still looking into ways to ditch FTP from the two browsers, the ultimate goal is to move away from this protocol given the existing security concerns.
As BP discovered, Google first wants to change how files stored on FTP servers are rendered when opened with Chrome browser.
At this point, whenever you point Chrome to an image located on an FTP server, the browser automatically renders it in a new tab. But a team of engineers at Google wants to modify this behavior, and instead of opening the file, the browser should start a download.
"Rather than rendering resources requested via FTP, we should download them. We should continue to render directory listings, but we will not render anything else. That is, ftp://ftp.hp.com/ will render the same, exciting directory listing you see today; while ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/test2/test2 will result in a `test2` file being downloaded,” Google engineers explain.
Other browsers could do the same
The idea to remove FTP support from Google Chrome was first proposed in January 2014, explaining that the small number of users connecting to FTP using the browser and the security risks should be addressed in a future update.
Mozilla is also considering a similar change in Firefox, though in this case, the most recent discussions over giving up on FTP in the browser took place nearly 5 months ago. It’s not known how advanced Mozilla’s plans on ditching FTP currently are, but if Google does it, expect Firefox to follow in its footsteps with a similar change.
And needless to say, if both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox drop support for FTP, there’s no doubt that all the other browsers out there would do the same thing, including Microsoft’s very own Edge. It’s more just a matter of when rather than if.