What it is
curl sends requests to URLs and prints or saves what comes back. It speaks HTTP and HTTPS along with FTP, SFTP and many other protocols, and lets you set headers, methods and request bodies, which makes it the standard tool for testing web APIs and downloading in scripts.
curl -L -o file.zip https://example.com/file.zip
Why it’s here
- APIs from the terminal. Send any HTTP request and see the full response.
- Downloads in scripts. Installers and scripts everywhere use it.
- Debugging web servers.
curl -Ishows a site’s headers and redirects.
On CoreDesktop
curl is installed from pacman. CoreDesktop also installs GNU Wget, wget, which is simpler for downloading files and can fetch whole directories recursively; CoreDesktop’s own install command uses it. update keeps both current with the pacman packages.