FTP is the ability to send and receive files from other computers. You will need to know the name of the file and the address of the site who has it before FTPing.
The world's most popular FTP client is now available in two versions: WS_FTP Limited Edition (LE) and WS_FTP Professional (Pro). Both versions include the superb Windows based file transfer capabilities that made the original WS_FTP so popular. WS_FTP LE is available free of charge only to non-commercial home users, students and faculty of educational institutions, and to U.S. federal, state, and local government employees.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) allows many users on different systems at different locations to converge into one "room" and have a discussion, similar to a conference call or party line.
One of the most popular IRC clients around. MIRC automates all IRC transfers and connections. Incudes colored text, DCC, XDCC, file servers and much more.
VIRC is a new concept in IRC. Soon, this program will be totally integrated with the Win95 Shell and you'll be able to drag files from the Explorer onto a nick to DCC send them the file, and you'll be able to drag IRC servers onto the desktop for rapidconnection to IRC. With a very intuitive interface, this is definitely one to check out.
ICQ is a revolutionary, user-friendly, Internet program that tells you who's online at all times. No longer will you search in vain for friends & associates on the 'net. ICQ does the searching for you, alerting you in real time when friends or colleagues sign on. In addition, ICQ continually tells you which of your friends & colleagues are online. NOTE: This is not actually an IRC client but is wonderful for 1-on-1 communications and can be switched to IRC type format when more than two people are "talking".
Archiving utilities allow an individual to compress/decompressfiles, making them smaller for uploading, downloading, putting on disk, etc. To decompress the file, you usually need a decompression program of the same format, to expand the files and make them usable again. There are many different formats of compression which vary in popularity. Currently ZIP is the most popular, but other formats such as ARJ, RAR, and even LHA and ARC have their adherents. You will need a utility to work with zip files!
The most popular compression/decompression utility for Windows, WinZip has an easy to use and fairly configurable interface, works fast, and adds items to the right-click menu whenever you're dealing with files to easily compress or decompress files.
ZipMagic includes the patent-pending ZipFolders technology, which safely and transparently shows zip files as normal Windows folders. The contents of zip files you download, receive or create become instantly accessible, so you can view and modify files, run programs, archive files, all with spectacular ease - without having to unzip anything. And every file stays compressed in the zip file, saving precious disk space! With ZipMagic, you can immediately use zip files, without hassles or headaches.