1) It’s true that FTP should be avoided.
2) The presence or absence of FTP in a specific program has nothing to do with whether or not the protocol itself is dead.
Would someone tell me what the heck what you just said? I can’t get that damned Microsoft Chronic out of my Internet Explorer system. Bring back Windows 7 then get the bell away from my computer. W7 worked very well and so does I.E..
1) It’s true that FTP should be avoided.
* In general maybe but there are plenty of use cases where it’s just fine. Within a trusted LAN environment being one but not the only example.
2) The presence or absence of FTP in a specific program has nothing to do with whether or not the protocol itself is dead.
* 100%
You're quite correct, of course. I was joining the Reg writer in a bit of hyperbole, based on the fact that the leading browser (by # of users) finally ditched it.
It's rare that a protocol "dies"; generally it just falls enough out of usage that it's no longer supported in product releases. Consider HTTP -- with the LetsEncrypt project doing so well, a huge majority of public sites are now HTTPS, many are HTTPS-only, and unencrypted HTTP will soon be relegated to internal-only LAN usage. Oh, and the Ubuntu package repos, although I expect even they will get around to preferring HTTPS eventually.