NFTP is a text-mode ftp client for (in alphabetical order): BeOS (Intel R4 and up), Digital Unix (Alpha), FreeBSD (Intel), Linux (Intel, SPARC), OS/2, Solaris (SPARC and Intel), Windows 95/NT. Here `text-mode' means that it runs in fullscreen mode or text window -- Command-line session on OS/2, Command Prompt on Windows 95/NT, console or xterm on Unix, Terminal on BeOS. However, with version 1.50 the quasi-GUI version has appeared for OS/2. It looks much like textmode version, but utilizes native GUI menu, some dialog boxes, can be resized freely etc. This does not mean of course that textmode version will be abandoned. X11 version (using Xlib) appeared in version 1.51. One of the main design concepts of NFTP is speed and effectiveness of text-mode keyboard interface. Everything can be done without mouse!

To clarify things a little, NFTP is not based on ncftp; neither on user interface nor on source code. The code is written from scratch (I have started the project in 1994m, but NFTP was OS/2-only until Feb 1998). Some ideas might seem to be common but still such ones are floating in the air, every decent FTP client should support things like directory caching and restarting transfers. Furthermore, NFTP user interface is quite different from ncftp's. Name "NFTP" comes from somewhat ugly "New FTP client". Personally, I think NFTP is the most advanced FTP client in the Unix world (although you might disagree with my opinion, of course). Under Windows and OS/2, it stands aside as almost all FTP clients for these systems are GUI-based (unlike NFTP). While GUI offers prettiness and ease of use for novices, textmode interface gives speed without sacrificing power (including speed of use when you learn key combinations). Besides, textmode interface makes possible the same interface on a variety of systems, including Unix.