Like many others, I chose to buy a Chromebook to avoid Windows and at the same time get a cheap laptop with long battery life. Unfortunately, Chromebooks also come with some disadvantages, especially since many programs you are used to not working on Chromebooks / Linux.
One program I have needed on my Chromebook is FileZilla, which is an FTP client I use in my daily work, it examines the following protocols Examines: FTP, FTP over SSL / TLS (FTPS), and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).
I couldn’t find a solution to install and use it on my Chromebook to be able to work on the Chromebook and therefore I ended up with the solution CodeAnywhere, which is a web IDE and FTP client that allows you to work from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection.
I have now found the solution and am sharing it with you.
Before you start, you must have enabled developer mode to use the Linux features. There is a guide here to do this:
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en
Step by step to get FileZilla on a Chromebook
- Open the Linux terminal by opening the menu (bottom left corner) and typing “Terminal”. Once the terminal is open select your installation, it is probably just called “penguin”.
- You should now see a terminal where you can enter commands. Enter the command sudo apt-get update and wait for the update to finish.
- Run the sudo apt-get install FileZilla command and wait for the installation to finish. You may have to accept the installation by typing Y in the terminal.
- If all went well, you will now be able to go back down to the menu and type FileZilla and be able to open it.
You now have FileZilla on your Chromebook, but you’ll probably experience a problem.
Disadvantages of FileZilla on Chromebook
FileZilla on your Chromebook works almost perfectly. However, there is one very annoying thing that doesn’t work correctly for most people and that is that you can’t log into an FTP server and edit the files as normal, without having to go into the Linux section and associate all the files with an application on Linux to edit the files… The reason is that FileZilla increases opening the files on Linux, where you probably don’t have a program to edit them. So therefore you need one so the files can be edited.
If you don’t have it, you’ll have to download the files and edit them on Chrome OS and move them back to Linux.
See here how to install Visual Studio Code on a ChromeBook so you can associate the files in FileZilla and thus avoid this problem.