Interesting that FTP is unstable in Safari too. I've tried it a few times on Internet Explorer on the PC, and IE simply freezes 80% of the time, requiring a three-fingered "End Task" jobbie.
FTP from the command line is simple enough. Get to where your files are (utilising 'cd soandso' for changing directories (aka folders, containers, whatever) and 'ls' for getting a directory listing) and type ftp ftp.something.soandso.com. Username is usually anonymous, password just put any old e-mail address.
Again, use 'ls' for a directory listing and 'cd soandso' to get into a directory, 'cd ..' to go into its parent etc. 'get suchandsuch.exe' would retrieve a file into wherever you were when you started ftp and 'put suchandsuch.jpg' would upload a file from whever you were.
That's about all you need to know..