FTP has been a large part of the on-going server migration. While I used to use Fetch on the mac, for the last 5 years I’ve just been using scp when I needed to transfer files.
Unfortunately, the new hosting company doesn’t support ssh, so I’ve been forced to get back into the FTP business. This time around I’m using the FUSE/MacFusion combination to handle FTP (and SFTP) access. The client seems pretty slow, but the Finder integration is very welcome. Since MacFusion actually mounts the volumes in the OS, I can use a wider variety of tools with the FTP server, like rsync.
There are other products around that do the same thing – for instance, Expandrive. But unlike MacFusion it’s not free, and my testing didn’t show a significant performance difference between the two products.
If I really need a faster client, I’d just use Transmit. Maybe I will use my copious free time to benchmark the three programs.