WinSCP Review

WinSCP is a file transfer software that can be used as an FTP client, SCP client, SFTP client, and WebDAV client with open source license. The software is created and developed by Martin Prikryl since 2000, while he was working at the University of Economics in Prague as the IT department staff. The open source project, which started as a one-man project, began to grow since then, with various contributions being made from the community to add more features to the software.

Graphical User Interface With Many Translations

WinSCP provides a simple graphical user interface that makes it easier for you to transfer files between your local computer and the remote server. Additionally, there are many translations available for the software, which makes it easier for people around the world to use this software. With the simple user interface, you can see the files that you have in the local computer and the files that you have on the remote server in one place. Transferring the files between the two computers is just a matter of clicking the transfer icon, and then the transferring process can begin immediately.

Support For SCP, FTP, SFTP, And WebDAV Protocols

The good thing about this software is that it supports several important protocols that are usually used in file transfer between local computer and remote server. Many similar software might only support one or two protocols, while this software can provide more transfer protocols to use. So, it can be said that this software is better than just a regular FTP client software, since it supports four main protocols, which are FTP, SFTP, SCP, and WebDAV. While these protocols are essentially doing the same thing, there are some instances that you need to use only a certain transfer protocol in order to transfer your local files to the remote server.

Windows Integration With Support For Common File Operations

Since WinSCP is a Windows file transfer program, it makes it easy for Windows users to use this software whenever they need without having to manually open the software. With Windows integration, you can easily access the functions of the software, such as jump list, URL, shortcut icons, as well as drag and drop function. Additionally, this software supports various file operations, such as file upload, file download, file navigation, session management, opening and editing files, rename, delete, and more.

Various Security Features Available

When you use this software, you don’t need to worry about the security features that it offers. The software has various security features that ensure your files are safely protected during the transfer process, such as public key, master password, and GSS authentication. These security features ensure that your files are protected both on the local system and the remote server. In the case of transfer over SSH, it also has the public key authentication system to secure the transfer process. So, no matter what protocol that you use, there is always a security feature available to ensure that the transfer process can be done quickly and securely.

Support For Portable Operation And Site Information Protection

While these might be considered as additional features, WinSCP can actually support site information protection and portable operation. It means that you can actually operate the software from the removable media without worrying that the features of the software are restricted. With the portable operation, you can use a configuration file, which will act as a replacement of the registry entries. With the site information protection, you can create the master password for the software to protect the stored site data that it has. In this way, you are the only one that can access the site data stored on your local machine.

Conclusion

If you are doing a lot of file transfer operations between your local computer and the remote server using various protocols, such as SCP, FTP, SFTP, and WebDAV, this is the software that you should use, since it supports those transfer protocols in one software. So, with WinSCP, you don’t need to use another software just to perform the file transfer process with another protocol. It can be said that it is an all-in-one file transfer solution that you can use if you want to transfer the files between the local machine and the remote computer. Best of all, it’s an open-source software, so you are free to use it anytime you need it, unlike other similar software that requires you to pay a license fee just to perform the similar file transfer operations.