The terminal application still includes ftp as an option in the "New Remote Connection" dialog, but attempting to use it pops up a dead terminal window with a "Command not found" error. Whoever decided to remove the command-line ftp program didn't to a good job of cleaning up after themselves.
High Sierra has also removed telnet which is useful not for unencrypted access to remote shells, but for quick testing of TCP port availability at remote end. Yes. There’s nc to do the same thing, but then there is also muscle-memory built since the mid 90ies<p>On the other hand, I get where Apple is coming from: those two tools are decades old and pretty much unmaintained. By not shipping them by default, they can reduce the attack surface (code not shipped won’t have vulnerabilities)<p>If you need command line FTP and telnet access, you can of course use homebrew to get them back.
Apple engineers often make technical decisions that affect developers but go unreported for various reasons. This seems like a classic example. When I worked at Apple, some of us had a saying: "Apple knows what its users need and we give it to them -- good and hard."
Given that FTP is insecure, and we've had SFTP as a replacement since 1999, I honestly don't see anything wrong here.<p>What's really a shame, is that so many providers still <i>only</i> support FTP.
I'm with Apple on this, though obviously the decision wasn't communicated in s transparent fashion<p>Haven't touched the ftp cmd line in 15 years, there are much better (and safer) alternatives
In the old days, people complained when Microsoft added a program to their OS, because it competed with third parties.<p>Nowadays, people complain when Apple removes a program from their OS, even when there are plenty of third party options...
Why Apple doesn't release comprehensive release notes about this kind of system-level changes? (Or maybe I've just missed them?) Why surprise the users after they've upgraded?
Which do you think is the more common scenario:<p>- Being hacked by sending a mom-and-pop website password in clear text<p>- Typing ftp twice at the command line, only to realize you need to install brew and then ftp (or FileZilla, Cyberduck) on a foreign Mac