The FTP process communicates with an FTP server program running on the host
site. It sends and receives packets of information with (potentially) a
handshake between the client and the server after each packet. The FTP
server program running on the server knows nothing about the website or its
needs. It only knows how to send and receive packets of information.
The http process communicates with the webserver on the host site. The
webserver knows about your website, and can do more than simply send and
receive packets of information. In the case of FP, this host webserver is
part of the FP server extensions. As you send and receive packets from your
client system to the host FP webserver, the packets of information are
changed as requested by the client (i.e., FrontPage) to enable certain
functions on the page. This is why your local page's code view, and your
published page's code view will reveal different code sets.
By using FTP on a site with FP server extensions enabled, you put or remove
files to or from the site without the 'knowledge' of the FP server
extensions. This can cause considerable problems to the functionality of
your site - and is said to "break" the server extensions (when in fact all
it does is to get the SE out of synch with the site). Whatever you call it,
the site is now broken. You can fix this by reloading the Server
extensions.
Speedwise, FTP will usually be much faster than FP's http since it is only
sending and receiving packets.
A good example of an FTP transmission protocol would be any 3rd party FTP
package (duh). A good example of an http transmission protocol would be
your browser connecting to any website. However fast that latter
transmission is, FP's will be slower, since FP is doing more when it
up/downloads files.
Hope I'm right with this, and if I'm lucky, that it helped you.
