huh?

[Jamesking56]

im confused? What is an FTP server and what uses does it have?

[justsomeguy]

FTP is for transferring files. HTTP was only meant to transfer smaller pieces of text and close the connection, an FTP connection is a persistent connection that you use to transfer larger files. FTP servers are usually set up to allow people to transfer large files to or from the server.

[Jamesking56]

does this mean i can use it to host my own forums?

[Nakor]

FTP has nothing to do with hosting a forum. To host your own forum you would probably want to have an http server, PHP, MySQL, and possibly SMTP. I would suggest that you look into XAMPP. You could then make a forum yourself with PHP, however you have to have a strong grasp of PHP before you make your own forum. You should take a look at phpBB. Their site is down right now but it is very easy to install and configure.

[justsomeguy]

does this mean i can use it to host my own forums?

I guess, if you want people to download the message boards. People use FTP servers most often to post their content. Most web servers also have FTP servers running. So you could connect to a certain server through http://server.com or ftp://server.com. People browse content through HTTP. You would connect to the server using FTP if you wanted to upload new web pages or images or something like that. There are also FTP servers that do not have a web server running, that are specifically for file storage.

[jesh]

Just to add to the discussion:FTP = File Transfer ProtocolHTTP = HyperText Transfer ProtocolFTP and HTTP are two standards that computers on the Internet use to communication with one another. One protocol is for transferring files, another is for transferring hypertext (i.e. web pages).