Public beta for Windows version out soon

Popular free and open-source FTP program Cyberduck has been updated to v3.8, bringing a number of new features and fixing more than a dozen issues. The big focus of the update is support for both Amazon's CloudFront content distribution network (CDN) and Swift storage (Openstack) installations. It also improves the speed of SFTP transfers, interoperability with third-party S3 tools and its ability to connect to HTTP/HTTPS proxies.

CloudFront is a service from Amazon that allows content providers to store files on either Amazon's S3 storage service or their own server, which is then mirrored to various Amazon servers around the world, essentially giving fast worldwide redistribution and localization abilities to any domain. When a file is requested through a web page, CloudFront delivers the correct version from its nearest "edge location" invisibly. Although designed to work with S3, the CloudFront CDN now allows files to be hosted on any server, and Cyberduck v3.8 sets up custom origins with a new, simple user interface.

Swift storage (Openstack) is an unstructured data storage protocol and emerging open standard for cloud-storage servers. It focuses on allowing data to be mirrored in diverse locations automatically, reducing the risk of failure, and is highly scalable. It's ideal for files that are static but need to be accessed frequently, such as image libraries, scripts, stylesheets or server backups.

Other changes include bookmark importation from FireFTP and CrossFTP, MD5 hash calculations on upload and synchronization of MD5 comparison across different services (S3, Dropbox, Azure), and fixes to improve interoperability with WebDAV.

The developers also announced that they will publish a public beta of Cyberduck for Windows before the end of the year. The Windows version has been in invitation-only testing since October. Releases from Cyberduck 4.0 onwards are expected to be on par on both platforms.

by MacNN Staff