There are several methods that we offer that can encrypt your username/password credentials and the files for secure transfer.
1. File Manager
The "File Manager" feature in myCP allows you to access your files securely through your web browser, using industry-standard SSL encryption for web pages. File Manager might be convenient for quickly accessing a file or transferring a small number of files, but if you need to transfer or manage a large number of files, it will probably be too unwieldy. Using an FTP client (see next section) would be much more convenient for those applications.
2. FTP with Explicit SSL (FTP-ES)
GIP supports an FTP extension called Explicit SSL (FTP-ES). This is similar in concept to SSL encryption for webpages, except applied to FTP. Most FTP programs from the past few years support FTP-ES. If you need a free FTP client that supports FTP-ES, check out this article.
FTP-ES is used in almost exactly the same way as regular unencrypted FTP. Same server, username, password, port, etc. Just make sure to specify "Explicit SSL" in the protocol or server type so that the client will start up the encrypted communication. Some FTP programs might call it "TLS" or "SSL/TLS" instead of "Explicit SSL."
FTP-ES is available to all users (including Secondary FTP Users).
3. SFTP
SFTP (not to be confused with FTP-ES) is another method for securely transferring files. Because SFTP is a subsystem of SSH, SFTP is only available to GIP accounts that come with SSH access. If SSH is a feature of your GIP account level, simply enable SSH access for your account, and you will then be able to use SFTP. For the SFTP server name, use the SSH server name for your account.
If you need a free SFTP client, check out this article.
