According to a document spotted by Techdows, Google Chrome will soon remove the option to access FTP locations using the browser.

According to the document that details the plan and the reasons behind this change the FTP feature is “sufficiently low” and moreover the browser does not support secure FTP or SFTP. Unencrypted FTP just like any other service is not a safe option to transfer data over the internet.

The current FTP implementation in Google Chrome has no support for encrypted connections (FTPS), nor proxies. Usage of FTP in the browser is sufficiently low that it is no longer viable to invest in improving the existing FTP client. In addition more capable FTP clients are available on all affected platforms.

The document also notes that most of the FTP capabilities have already been removed:

Google Chrome 72+ removed 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. A bug in Google Chrome 74+ resulted in dropping support for accessing FTP URLs over HTTP proxies. Proxy support for FTP was removed entirely in Google Chrome 76.

Chrome will stop loading URLs starting with ftp:// from version 76 onwards. If you are using FTP on Chrome tabs for any specific reasons, like, accessing files on your internal network, you will have to consider using another browser or an app.

Other browsers might continue to support the FTP protocol, says the document. However, there is a possibility that other browser also might follow Chrome’s lead.

Do you use ftp via browser? Do you have a possible workaround or an app in mind?