Transferring files and data

Transferring files over the Internet is one of the most common things that networked applications do. In this section, we'll focus on two very popular protocols—HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The first one is used to download websites, images, or other files from the Web and second one is used to download or upload files. There are subtle differences between the two and we'll need to go into a bit more detail to understand them.

HTTP is a for retrieving a single item over network. It allows us to retrieve a single element and is a lightweight protocol. It also allows us to handle large numbers of requests and is the protocol used for serving websites to web browsers. HTTP is used for both static files (such as HTML pages, images, downloads, and so on) and dynamic files (such as PHP or Tcl scripts building pages when users access them).

FTP protocol on the other hand is designed to transfer files over a network. It features...