curl is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, TFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, TELNET, DICT, FILE and LDAP.

curl supports SSL certificates, HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, FTP uploading, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user password authentication (Basic, Digest, NTLM, Negotiate, kerberos...), file transfer resume, proxy tunneling and a busload of other useful tricks.

Curl is open source and free software that compiles and runs under a wide variety of operating systems.

How to install and run: Unarchive, open a Terminal window, go to curl's folder and run the following commands from the command line:

./configure
make
sudo make install
curl

Here are some key features of "cURL":

curl tool:
· config file support
· multiple URLs in a single command line
· range "globbing" support: [0-13], {one,two,three}
· multiple file upload on a single command line
· custom maximum transfer rate
· redirectable stderr

libcurl supports:
· full URL syntax with no length limit
· custom maximum download time
· custom least download speed acceptable
· custom output result after completion
· guesses protocol from host name unless specified
· uses .netrc
· progress bar/time specs while downloading
· "standard" proxy environment variables support
· compiles on win32 (reported builds on 40 operating systems)
· selectable network interface for outgoing traffic
· IPv6 support on unix and Windows
· persistant connections
· socks5 support
· supports user name password in proxy environment variables
· operations through proxy "tunnel" (using CONNECT)
· supports large files (>2GB and >4GB) both upload/download
· replacable memory functions (malloc, free, realloc, etc)
· asynchronous name resolving (*6)
· both a push and a pull style interface

HTTP:
· HTTP/1.1 compliant (optionally uses 1.0)
· GET
· PUT
· HEAD
· POST
· Pipelining
· multipart formpost (RFC1867-style)
· authentication: Basic, Digest, NTLM, GSS-Negotiate/Negotiate and SPNEGO to server and proxy
· resume (both GET and PUT)
· follow redirects
· maximum amount of redirects to follow
· custom HTTP request
· cookie get/send fully parsed
· reads/writes the netscape cookie file format
· custom headers (replace/remove internally generated headers)
· custom user-agent string
· custom referer string
· range
· proxy authentication
· time conditions
· via http-proxy
· retrieve file modification date
· Content-Encoding support for deflate and gzip
· "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" support for "uploads"

HTTPS:
· (all the HTTP features)
· using client certificates
· verify server certificate
· via http-proxy
· select desired encryption
· force usage of a specific SSL version (SSLv2, SSLv3 or TLSv1)

FTP:
· download
· authentication
· kerberos4, kerberos5
· active/passive using PORT, EPRT, PASV or EPSV
· single file size information (compare to HTTP HEAD)
· 'type=' URL support
· dir listing
· dir listing names-only
· upload
· upload append
· upload via http-proxy as HTTP PUT
· download resume
· upload resume
· custom ftp commands (before and/or after the transfer)
· simple "range" support
· via http-proxy
· all operations can be tunneled through a http-proxy
· customizable to retrieve file modification date
· no dir depth limit

FTPS:
· implicit ftps:// support that use SSL on both connections
· explicit "AUTH TSL" and "AUTH SSL" usage to "upgrade" plain ftp:// connection to use SSL for both or one of the connections

SCP:
· both password and public key auth

SFTP:
· both password and public key auth
· with custom commands sent before/after the transfer

TFTP:
· download / upload

TELNET:
· connection negotiation
· custom telnet options
· stdin/stdout I/O

LDAP:
· full LDAP URL support

DICT:
· extended DICT URL support

FILE:
· URL support
· "uploads"
· resume

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

Changes:
· CURLOPT_QUOTE: SFTP supports the '*'-prefix now
· CURLOPT_DNS_SERVERS: set name servers if possible
· Add support for using nettle instead of gcrypt as gnutls backend
· CURLOPT_INTERFACE: avoid resolving interfaces names with magic prefixes
· Added CURLOPT_ACCEPTTIMEOUT_MS
· configure: add symbols versioning option --enable-versioned-symbols

Bug fixes:
· curl was vulnerable to a data injection attack for certain protocols CVE-2012-0036
· curl was vulnerable to a SSL CBC IV vulnerability when built to use OpenSSL
· SSL session share: move the age counter to the share object
· -J -O: use -O name if no Content-Disposition header comes!
· protocol_connect: show verbose connect and set connect time
· query-part: ignore the URI part for given protocols
· gnutls: only translate winsock errors for old versions
· POP3: fix end of body detection
· POP3: detect when LIST returns no mails
· TELNET: improved treatment of options
· configure: add support for pkg-config detection of libidn
· CyaSSL 2.0+ library initializa...