The File Sharing protocols we will explore in this article were developed with a focus on the LAN (Local Area Network) in an office or campus environment. These are beyond the scope of this article, which discusses protocols supported by corporate or home networks without such modifications. There are also a variety of file sharing methods called "peer-to-peer" (P2P), such as Bittorrent, Kazaa, and Freenet, that require special software and/or additional networking protocols to function.
They can be used for uploads also, but this is less common. Typically these are used with web browsers, for example, in scenarios where the user is presented with a web page with a link, which when clicked on initiates a download of the file to the user's computer. This type of functionality is most often provided by the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) or variants of these protocols. The term transfer will be used to refer to what is commonly called uploading or downloading files. While there may be some gray area or overlap of how these terms are used, for this post it will be useful to separate them in the following way. File Transfer vs File Sharingįor clarity, it's useful to make a distinction between file transfer and file sharing. This post will explain the most popular methods of file sharing, what they require, and how they are implemented.
With the advent of more and more computer networks like ethernet, it became much more convenient to share or transfer files over this network. In the earlier days of computing, file sharing involved the use of what was often termed the "SneakerNet", which meant taking a floppy disk or other removable media from one computer to another to transfer files. File sharing over networks is a very common practice today, especially in enterprise settings, as well as in SOHO (small office/home office) environments.
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