@brock: what command line options did you use? the keys i've tried were all generated by ssh-keygen except for one, and i haven't been able to get andftp to use any of them.

how do you know? has anyone gotten this app to work with a server that has password auth disabled?
you do know that having password auth enabled can allow people to brute-force your password, right?

is password auth disabled on your server?

yes, it's a dsa key, not password protected.
i filled in the username and key file but no password because there isn't one.

key authentication seems to be broken. it prompts for a password even tho there's a key file selected. password authentication is disabled on the server. the same openssh dsa key works fine with connectbot.