FTP on Linux, handled correctly.
Most Linux teams running FTP today are stuck on it for one reason: a legacy partner endpoint, a banking VAN that mandates FTPS-implicit, an EDI counterparty that won't budge. ExpanDrive mounts any FTP or FTPS server as a native drive on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, Rocky, and AlmaLinux — plain FTP, FTPS-explicit, and FTPS-implicit, with signed apt and yum repositories and the same on-demand streaming model as the rest of the product.
— What you get
The protocol you can't kill, mounted as a drive.
Native .deb and .rpm packages.
Signed apt and yum repositories for automatic updates. Install through your package manager on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, and AlmaLinux. No tarballs, no curlftpfs versioning headaches, no community fork that broke when libcurl updated.
Plain FTP and FTPS, both modes.
ExpanDrive speaks the full protocol — plain FTP for legacy systems that don't support TLS, FTPS-explicit for everything modern, FTPS-implicit for the financial-services and government endpoints that still mandate it. Pick the security mode the server actually supports.
Standard Linux mount point.
FTP servers appear at a standard FUSE mount path. GNOME Files, Dolphin, Vim, VS Code, rsync, the shell — every Linux tool reads and writes FTP files as the local filesystem. No protocol-specific clients to install or train teammates on.
Active and passive modes.
ExpanDrive negotiates active or passive mode based on what the server needs. Behind a NAT? Passive mode handles it. Talking to a strict firewall that requires active mode? That's available too — configurable in the connection setup.
— FTP security modes
Three TLS modes, pick what the server supports.
FTP is older than TLS. The protocol evolved to add encryption in three different shapes — and the right one depends on what your server actually supports. Most Linux teams running FTP in 2026 should use FTPS-explicit; the ones who can't, can't.
FTPS-explicit (FTPES).
The modern recommendation. Connection starts in plaintext on port 21, then upgrades to TLS via the AUTH command. Same port as plain FTP, but encrypted from the handshake forward. Use this unless the server requires implicit mode.
FTPS-implicit.
Older TLS variant. Connection is encrypted from the first byte, typically on port 990. Less common now but still mandated by some legacy financial-services VANs and government endpoints. ExpanDrive handles it the same as explicit.
Plain FTP.
No encryption. Credentials and file contents travel in cleartext. Available for the legacy systems that don't support TLS at all — and only justifiable over a trusted network. ExpanDrive will mount it; the server's choice of protocol isn't ExpanDrive's fault.
— vs the Linux alternatives
Where curlftpfs and lftp stop short.
Linux FTP access has been a generation of partial solutions. Here's where ExpanDrive fits.
- curlftpfs is largely abandoned. The historical FUSE mount for FTP on Linux. Last upstream activity years ago, no FTPS-implicit support, brittle on flaky networks, and a distinct lack of a maintainer to file a bug against when something breaks.
- lftp is a CLI, not a mount. Powerful for scripted batch transfers and cron jobs — not a daily desktop mount. No filesystem interface, no integration with desktop apps, no on-demand streaming for the parts of the remote tree you actually open.
- GNOME Online Accounts is partial.GOA exposes FTP through GVFS in GNOME Files but doesn't handle FTPS modes cleanly, has no offline pinning, and uses path formats that break half of the CLI workflows.
- The browser FTP path is gone. Chrome and Firefox dropped FTP URL support in 2021. Whatever quick-and-dirty workflow your team had through the browser is no longer a workflow — ExpanDrive replaces it with a proper desktop mount.
— Modernizing off FTP
Most teams running FTP are slowly leaving it.
Same ExpanDrive Linux client mounts the destinations most FTP teams migrate to. One product, one Linux install, the protocols you have today and the ones you're moving toward.
SFTP
Mount any SFTP or SSH server as a local drive on Mac or Windows - browse and edit remote files without syncing.
Amazon S3
Connect to Amazon S3 or any S3-compatible storage as a network drive — multi-threaded transfers and full bucket browsing on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
WebDAV
Connect to any WebDAV server directly from your desktop - mapped as a network drive with full file access on Mac, Windows, or Linux.
— Common questions
Common questions about FTP on Linux.
Distros, security modes, NAT and firewalls, headless boxes, and the question of whether to use FTP at all in 2026.
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Try it free.
Mount everything.
Free for personal use. Runs on every Mac, PC, and Linux box built in the last decade.