scp, sftp and rsync are transfer protocol implemented above SSH and therefore should be very secure. You will need to use your account username and password to transfer files using scp, sftp or rsync.

rsync has an advantage that it will only send the differences over the wire. For example, suppose that you have a file index.html on both your computer and your account. If you upload index.html from your computer to your account using other method, then the whole index.html will be transferred, replacing the current index.html that is on your account. On the other hand, when you use rsync, only the differences will be transferred, not the whole file, saving you bandwidth and time. The downside of rsync is that it currently lacks graphical client programs and it is not straightforward to install and use rsync on Microsoft ® Windows ® operating system.