It’s been a work in development for quite some time now, and I’ve been using it as my main client ever since it entered beta stage, but developer Tim Kosse has finally published a stable 3.0.0 version of the famous open source S/FTP client, FileZilla.
This release is important for a number of reasons: first, while the v2 line of the program was Windows-only, this new client is cross-platform, written in C++ and wxWidgets. That means that you’ll no longer have to use gftp in GNOME, if you’re a Linux user. The program has finally found its way into most Linux distributions, sometimes as the default client. It’s also available for OS X, though in fairness, Cyberduck might be a better option in that case.
But the other key difference is that in addition to completely rewriting the front-end, the engine itself has been rewritten and is blazing fast. So fast that when I first tried the beta, I was taken aback by the responsiveness of the app and the sprightliness of its functions. Prolonged transfer speeds aren’t really any different, of course, but tasks like directory switching and deleting (especially recursive deletes) happen much more quickly.
Oh, and did I mention it has a new icon, courtesy of a forum member at the FileZilla homepage?
