Archie - technical definition

A corruption of archive. An Internet browser based on the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Archie enables the user to search for a file (exact name unknown) on a file server (name unknown) somewhere on the Internet. Archie servers contain directory listings of all such files, updated on a monthly basis through a process of polling file servers. Archie provides a user definable number of file hits, as well as file names, server names, and directory paths to access each listed file. Archie capabilities are limited to specific search strings, thereby providing little flexibility. Archie was first deployed in 1991 and currently is often integrated into Gopher or WWW clients and activated when the user accesses an Archie server. See also browser, client, FTP, Gopher, Internet, polling, server, string, and WWW.