FTP support enabled in Google Chrome due to COVID-19

In the current version of Chrome 81, Google has disabled FTP support, but now it intends to bring it back. The fact is that many government sites and resources of healthcare organizations still use an outdated protocol and during the corona virus pandemic, Google seeks to provide its users with maximum access to information.

Google planned to abandon FTP support in its browser since 2014. At the end of 2018, the company turned off FTP in Chrome for iOS and then set to work on desktop versions.

FTP is an insecure, outdated protocol. We have disabled FTP support for iOS, but its use in Chrome-based on Blink is quite large, so it is difficult to remove it at a time. This seems like a reasonable way to reduce the possibility of using it as a vector for attacks and a springboard for complete removal,

Chrome developers

Starting with Chrome 80, Google began to abandon FTP support by adding the flag “chrome: // flags / # enable-ftp” to control whether protocol support was turned on or off. Chrome 80 enabled FTP by default, but as an experiment, the developers : 1% of users disabled it in order to see what problems with access to content may occur.

How to Enable FTP Support in Chrome

In Chrome 81, FTP support is disabled by default, but you can enable it using the # enable-ftp flag.

• Open Chrome and type “chrome://flags” in the address bar.
• Once in the flags area, type “enable-ftp” in the search bar stating “search flags”.
• When you see the “Enable support for FTP URLs” option tap where it says “Default”.
• Tap “Enable” option.
• Hit “Relaunch Now” option at the bottom of the page.
• Chrome will relaunch and the Chrome will start supporting FTP.

Last week, Google software engineer Asanka Herath posted a new post in the topic Removing built-in FTP support from Chrome

So, friends. In light of the current crisis, we intend to “revive” FTP on the stable Chrome channel. That is, FTP will work again.

According to the engineer, protocol support will be disabled again when the situation normalizes and users will again have to manually enable FTP support until the “flag” is completely removed from Google Chrome.

Conclusion

Google step to remove FTP support from Chrome makes sense and is logical as FTP is an obsolete protocol and its outdated with no revision since September 1998. However the world is still using FTP because of the fact that their is no alternate but when Google will force a total block on its famous chrome browser it might make people move to safer and better alternatives