curl: Your tool for accessing the great beyond

If you need a slick way to reach out and take from the grand repository of data we call The Internet, curl can do it.

Between this and wget, I’ll admit I don’t know the advantage. I notice that some programs prefer one to another, but I don’t know if that’s just programmer’s decision, or if there’s a specific reason for that.

curl’s web site says it can handle a lot — and I mean a lot — of different protocols, which might be a clue.

curl is usually a critical tool in almost any distro. I know for example if I try to yank it out of my lean-mean IceWM installation on Arch, I get a HoldPkg warning … meaning it’s hooked into some low-level, primordial packages that are keeping this delicate collection of software afloat.

I don’t know what else to say about curl. I have used it in the past, rarely, to pull something from the Internet on systems that I didn’t want to tax with a full-scale browser.

It worked fine then, and I have no reason to doubt it would work for you. 😉