Dictionary.net

(Or "FTP site", "FTP archive") An Internet hostwhere program source, documents, e-mail or news messages arestored for public access via anonymous FTP, Gopher,World-Wide Web or other document distribution system. There maybe several archive sites (mirrors) for, e.g., a Usenetnewsgroup though one may be recognised as the main one.FTP servers were common on the Internet for about ten years buthave been largely replaced by web servers since the invention ofthe World-Wide Web and its HTTP protocol.Some well-known archive sites included Imperial College, UK(ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/), UUNET, USA (ftp://ftp.uu.net/), GNUarchive site.The archie service attempted to index the contents of FTParchives, foreshadowing the indexing of the web by Google andothers.