Press release February 21, 2001

World Novelty: FTP in a Browser
File management in the internet without software

If you are planning to transfer files on the internet to another computer, you are no longer dependent on special software (a so-called FTP client). Nutzwerk GmbH Halle has managed to make all functions of the file transfer protocol accessible via browser.

Users do not need a plug-in, and there is no need to install or change anything. They can simply surf to www.ftportal.com, the file transfer portal, and navigate from there on any FTP server, just like they are used to from their operating system.

The free German/English service is especially suitable for updating ones own homepage from anywhere. The browser window allows you to create or rename directories, delete files, start uploads and downloads or to define access rights.

What required a special client in the past now works via an ordinary web site. This way a whole class of mobile end devices and set-top boxes gets the benefit of file functionality that used to be reserved for PCs.

File sharing for all

Suddenly file sharing is available to all internet users. Home page owners can set up protected areas that others can share, including uploads. All this through the wonderfully clear user interface of FTPortal.

As expected from a file transfer protocol, the offer is complemented by additional services. Apart from the possibility to use FTP in the browser, there is a search engine for files that everybody can integrate as well as a top ten list of the most frequently visited FTP servers that is updated automatically.

Providers get double profit from this brand-new service: Web space providers can link to FTPortal. This way their customers can maintain their home pages even without FTP program. Content providers get free advertising space on the portal for linking.

"FTPortal has brought us closer again to our final objective of making all functions of an operating system available in every browser and on every end device", says René Holzer, managing director of Nutzwerk, about the success.

The procedures FTPortal is based on are part of a technology that Nutzwerk wants to patent. This technology has already been successfully implemented in systems for Internet in-a-box, which are distributed worldwide by different vendors.