Opinion needed on FTP Vs SFTP

There are lots of questions related to FTP server. Firstly I want to know about the difference between FTP and SFTP? And why we are using Secure FTP instead of FTP? And why is SFTP better than FTP? I also want to know about the service providers of FTP. Can anyone help me? I shall be very thankful to you for your suggestion.

Using SFTP allows the data to be encrypted unlike FTP. This is done over the ssh port (usually 22) not over the ftp ports.
I cannot possible know why you are using Secure Ftp insead of ftp, could be for security reasons.
I am not aware of any specific FTP service providers, but most web host will give you ftp access.

Hey, we use SFTP instead of FTP as everyone wants to secure his data. Actually security is the main concern in file transferring. There are lots of secure file transfer tools are available on the net that can solve your problems. I know one among of them called (www dot anyclient dot com) Secure FTP Server.It provides you a downloadable application that you can install locally. Hope you will be satisfied by my opinion.

In terms of usability, there is very little difference between FTP and sFTP. You will need to enter slightly different configuration details and accept a server "key" when you connect via sFTP, but otherwise functionality has not changed. You still upload, download and delete files the same way.

sftp is a secure form of the ftp command.Whenever a user opens up a regular ftp session or most other TCP/IP connections, the entire transmission made between the host and the user is sent in plain text.Anyone who has the ability to snoop on the network packets can read the data, including the password information.If an unauthorized user can login, they have the oppurtunity to compromise the system.
When using ssh's sftp instead of the ftp, the entire login sesion, including transmission of password, is encrypted.It is therefore much more difficult for an outsider to observe and collect passwords from a system using ssh/sftp sessions.

http:// www .ezinearticles.com/?All-FTP-Hosting-Services-Are-Not-Created-Equally!&id=214221

You don't understand why SFTP would be required over FTP? Data encryption is very important when your dealing with a large system, especially when you'd have a lot of angry people above you in the company if any important company info was released because of a lack of data security. People do a lot of work from home these days, the encryption is necessary nowadays in any kind of corporate environment. Plus it's easy to just setup a simple ssh daemon on your nix server and disable ftp traffic, there's no real reason to still be using FTP.