archive site
Synonyms
FTP archive
(Or "FTP site", "FTP archive") An Internet host where program source, documents, e-mail or news messages are stored for public access via anonymous FTP, Gopher, web or other document distribution system. There may be several archive sites (mirrors) for, e.g., a Usenet newsgroup though one may be recognised as the main one.
FTP servers were common on the Internet for about ten years but have been largely replaced by web servers since the invention of the World-Wide Web and its HTTP protocol.
Some well-known archive sites included Imperial College, UK, UUNET, USA, GNU archive site.
The archie service attempted to index the contents of FTP archives, foreshadowing the indexing of the web by Google and others.