[arp242]

The command hasn't been removed or deprecated; just the protocol. Instead of using the SCP protocol it uses the SFTP protocol. As a user, you basically don't notice outside of some specific cases. OpenSSH has used the SFTP protocol as the default for a year or two.

[m463]

I remember working on openssh years ago and when I got into scp - I was "WTF are they THINKING?" sort of thing.

Basically scp logged you into the remote system just like ssh and spawned an process through a command pipe.

For one thing, this completely eliminated the ability to separate "user can run program on remote system" from a much more limited "can send/receive a file".

It's like if nfs access to a filesystem required the ability to log into the remote system.

I'm glad this seems to have been sort of addressed. I don't know if it allows more sane filesystem-access-only ssh access to a system.

[arp242]

It's one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" things from when the internet was essentially a bunch of universities and a lot less hostile. Originally this was all just wrappers around telnet.