archive site

networking (Or "FTP site", "FTP archive") An Internet

host where program source, documents, e-mail or news

messages are stored for public access via anonymous FTP,

Gopher, World-Wide Web or other document distribution

system. There may be several archive sites for e.g. a

Usenet newsgroup though one may be recognised as the main

one.

FTP servers were common on the Internet for many years before

the World-Wide Web (WWW) was invented and are still used in

preference to web servers for serving large files such as

software distributions. This is because FTP is more efficient

than HTTP, the protocol of the WWW. Many sites therefore

run both HTTP and FTP servers.

[Is FTP more efficient? How much more?]

Some well-known archive sites include Imperial College, UK, UUNET, USA .

See also archie, GNU archive site, mirror.

(1998-07-02)