Anonymous FTP: how and why to enable it

Regarding yesterday's item on "unintentionally" enabling anonymous ftp, Michael Vacik replies that anyone using ftp is will advised to enable the anonymous option. He writes:

"Unless you are using anonymous FTP, the password is transferred as raw text when connecting to FTP server. And that means not just open access to FTP but also to SSH, user account and everything that the password is valid for. Therefore, it's better to use anonymous FTP with combination of strong encryption for transferred files if needed."

For those who don't know how to setup anonymous ftp, this page provides detailed instructions.

Update: Jason Harris cautions: "With anonymous FTP, if you're using broadband and software thieves or porn traders find your site, they can use it. A much better solution is to use SFTP or to tunnel FTP over SSH. Interarchy can do the latter."