Google Chrome developers are taking steps to remove support for fetching document subresources over FTP and rendering of top level FTP resources. Currently navigating to FTP URLs result in showing a directory listing or a download depending on the type of resource.
FTP Deprecation Timeline
- Chrome 78: Start of FTP deprecation.
- Chrome 80 (Q1 2020): gradual turndown of FTP in stable.
- Chrome 82: FTP related code and resources are removed.
Functionality Risk of Removing FTP
Google Chrome will fail to resolve or recognize ftp:// URLs. Instead, the browser will attempt to invoke the default handler for ftp:// URLs as determined by the underlying platform.
Technically, If Chrome removes FTP support, the browser will download PDF files, images and other resources from the FTP sites instead of displaying them on the browser. What will be shown on your browser is the list of each FTP folder’s contents.
Mozilla is also considering a similar change in Firefox. While it is likely to say that if Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox drop support for FTP, there’s no doubt that all the other browsers out there would follow in its footsteps with a similar change.