Users tell us that remembering what curl options to use when they just want to download the contents of a URL is hard. This is one often repeated reason why some users reach for wget instead of curl on the command line. It downloads the data from the URL without you needing to provide any extra arguments. Without you needing to remember which option(s) to use.
In the curl user survey of 2024, it was again mentioned several times.
Enter wcurl
Samuel Henrique decided to do something about it. Today he announced that he not only created wcurl as a curl wrapper aimed at meeting this exact need, he also created a Debian package out of it and made sure wcurl now ships as part of the curl package. Starting in 8.8.0-2. I already have it on my Debian unstable installations.
wcurl is implemented a shell script that uses curl. It also ships with its own manpage.
Take it for a spin. Tell the team what you think!
This is great. Humble opinion: wcurl should be shipped with curl.
PS: Thank you for your work on curl!
Why not just continue to use wget?
Exactly what I was thinking…
+1 to making this part of the curl distribution, and +1 to the repeated thanks for the curl distribution.
As for “why not use wget”: it has different options and assumptions that curl. They are fine, but remembering which one I’m about to get when I pick between curl and wget is error-prone.