--- title: "cURL: What It Is, And How You Can Use It For Web Scraping" slug: how-to-use-curl-for-web-scraping date: 2020-12-23T00:00:00+00:00 modified: 2026-08-26T17:00:15+00:00 permalink: https://brightdata.com/blog/how-tos/how-to-use-curl-for-web-scraping type: blog --- [ Blog ](https://brightdata.com/blog "Blog") / [How Tos](https://brightdata.com/blog/how-tos) [How Tos](https://brightdata.com/blog/how-tos) # cURL: What It Is, And How You Can Use It For Web Scraping cURL is a versatile command used by programmers for data collection and data transfers. But how can you leverage cURL for web scraping? This article will help you get started. 7 min read [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/gal-el-al) [Gal El Al Director of Support ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/gal-el-al) ![data collection and web scraping with cURL](https://media.brightdata.com/2020/12/upload_blog_20201220_153903.svg) In this blog post you will learn: - What is cURL? - How to use cURL? - Why is cURL so popular? - Using cURL with proxies - How to change the User-Agent - Web scraping with cURL ## **What Is cURL?** *cURL* is a command-line tool that you can use to transfer data via network protocols. The name *cURL* stands for ‘Client URL’, and is also written as ‘curl’. This popular command uses URL syntax to transfer data to and from servers. *Curl* is powered by ‘libcurl’, a free and easy-to-use client-side URL transfer library. ### ***Why using curl is advantageous?*** The versatility of this command means you can use curl for a variety of use cases, including: - User authentication - HTTP posts - SSL connections - Proxy support - FTP uploads The simplest ‘use case’ for *curl* would be downloading and uploading entire websites using one of the supported protocols. ## **Curl protocols** While curl has a long list of supported protocols it will use HTTP by default if you don’t provide a specific protocol. Here is the list of supported protocols: DICTFILEFTPFTPSGOPHERHTTPHTTPSIMAPIMAPSLDAPPOP3RTMPRTSPSCPSFTPSMBSMBSTELNETTFTP## **Installing curl** The curl command is installed by default in Linux distributions. *How do you check if you already have curl installed?* 1\. Open your Linux console 2\. Type ‘curl’, and press ‘enter’. 3\. If you already have curl installed, you will see the following message: ```none curl: try 'curl --help' for more information ``` 4\. If you don’t have curl installed already, you will see the following message: ‘command not found’. You can then turn to your distribution package and install it (more details below). ## **How to use cURL** Curl’s syntax is pretty simple: ```none curl [options] [url] ``` For example, if you want to download a webpage: webpage.com just run: ```none curl www.webpage.com ``` The command will then give you the source code of the page in your terminal window. Keep in mind that if you don’t specify a protocol, curl will default to HTTP. Below you can find an example of how to define specific protocols: ```none curl ftp://webpage.com ``` If you forget to add the :// curl will guess the protocol you want to use. We talked briefly about the basic use of the command, but you can find a list of options on the curl documentation site. The options are the possible actions you can perform on the URL. When you choose an option, it tells curl what action to take on the URL you listed. The URL tells *cURL* where it needs to perform this action. Then *cURL* lets you list one or several URLs. To download multiple URLs, prefix each URL with a -0 followed by a space. You can do this in a single line or write a different line for each URL. You can also download part of a URL by listing the pages. For example: ```none curl.exe -O http://example.com/page{1,4,6}.html ``` ## **Saving the download** You can save the content of the URL to a file by using curl using two different methods: 1\. -o method: Allows you to add a filename where the URL will be saved. This option has the following structure: ```none curl -0 filename.html http://example.com/file.html ``` 2\. -O method: Here you don’t need to add a filename, since this option allows you to save the file under the URL name. To use this option, you just need to prefix the URL with a -O. ## **Resuming the download** It may happen that your download stops in the middle. In this case scenario, rewrite the command adding the -C option at the beginning : ```none curl -C - -O http://website.com/file.html ``` ## **Why is curl so popular?** Curl is really the ‘swiss-knife’ of commands, created for complex operations. However, there are alternatives, for example, ‘wget’ or ‘Kurly’, that are good for simpler tasks. Curl is a favorite among developers because it is available for almost every platform. Sometimes it is even installed by default. This means, whatever programs/jobs you are running, curl commands should work. Also, chances are that if your OS is less than a decade old, you will have curl installed. You can also read the docs in a browser, and check the [curl documentation](https://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html). If you are running a recent version of Windows, you probably already have curl installed. If you don’t, check out [this post on Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9507353/how-do-i-install-and-use-curl-on-windows) to learn more about how to do this. ## **Using cURL with proxies** Some people may prefer [using cURL in conjunction with a proxy](/blog/proxy-101/curl-with-proxies). The benefits here include: 1. Increasing one’s ability to successfully manage data requests from [different geolocations](/locations). 2. Exponentially driving the number of concurrent data jobs one can run simultaneously. In order to accomplish this you can make use of the ‘-x’, and ‘(- – proxy)’ capabilities already built into cURL. Here is an example of the command line that you can use in order to integrate the proxy you are using with cURL: ```none $ curl -x 026.930.77.2:6666 http://linux.com/ ``` In the above code snippet – ‘6666’ is a placeholder for the port number, while ‘026.930.77.2’ is the IP address. **Good to know:** cUrl is compatible with most of the common proxy types currently in use including HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS. ## **How to change the User-Agent** User-Agents are characteristics that allow target sites to identify the device requesting information. A target site may require requesters to meet certain criteria before returning desired target data. This could pertain to a device type, operating system, or the browser being used. In this scenario, entities collecting data will want to emulate their target site’s ideal ‘candidate’. For argument’s sake, let’s say that the site you are targeting ‘prefers’ requesting parties to use Chrome as a browser. In order to obtain the desired data set using cURL, one will need to emulate this ‘browser trait’ as follows: ```none curl -A "Goggle/9.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Chrome/103.0.5060.71" https://getfedora.org/ ``` ## **Web Scraping with cURL** **Pro tip:** Be sure to abide by a website’s rules, and in general do not try to access password-protected content which is illegal for the most part or at the very least frowned upon. You can use **curl** to automate the repetitive process when web scraping, helping you avoid tedious tasks. For that, you will need to use PHP. Here’s an example we found on [GitHub](https://gist.github.com/maxcal/2947417#file-gistfile1-aw): ```none ``` When you use curl to scrape a webpage there are three options, you should use: - Initializes the session ```none curl_init($url) ``` - Executes the session ```none curl_exec() ``` - Closes the session ```none curl_close() ``` Other options you should use include: - Sets the URL you want to scrape ```none CURLOPT_URL ``` - Tells curl to save the scraped page as a variable. (This enables you to get exactly what you wanted to extract from the page.) ```none CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER ``` ## The bottom line While cURL is a powerful web scraping tool, it requires companies to use valuable developer time both in terms of data collection as well as data cleaning. This is where Bright Data comes in. Bright Data, the world’s #1 web data infrastructure, has a wide range of products to assist with web scraping needs. Bright Data products include the [Web Scraper APIs](/products/web-scraper) that are built with developers in mind, an [automated browser](/products/scraping-browser) that comes built-in website unblocking automation, a [dataset marketplace](/products/datasets) for those who would rather receive accurate data than scrape, and 400M+ monthly reliable proxies. Contact usStart free trial No credit card required Gal El Al Director of Support Head of Support at Bright Data with a demonstrated history of working in the computer and network security industry. Specializing in billing processes, technical support, quality assurance, account management, as well as helping customers streamline their data collection efforts while simultaneously improving cost efficiency. [ View all articles ](https://brightdata.com/blog/authors/gal-el-al) Table of Contents Dedicated Scraper APIs & No-Code Scrapers Over 1000 scrapers for all popular domains. Simplify your web scraping. [See pricing](/pricing/web-scraper "See pricing") Just want data? Skip scraping. Hundreds of ready-to-use datasets from all popular domains. [See pricing](/pricing/datasets "See pricing") [ ](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?t=cURL%3A+What+It+Is%2C+And+How+You+Can+Use+It+For+Web+Scraping&u=https://brightdata.com/blog/how-tos/how-to-use-curl-for-web-scraping) [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&title=cURL%3A+What+It+Is%2C+And+How+You+Can+Use+It+For+Web+Scraping&url=https://brightdata.com/blog/how-tos/how-to-use-curl-for-web-scraping) [ ](http://www.reddit.com/submit?title=cURL%3A+What+It+Is%2C+And+How+You+Can+Use+It+For+Web+Scraping&url=https://brightdata.com/blog/how-tos/how-to-use-curl-for-web-scraping) ## You might also be interested in [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/openhuman-with-bright-data "Production-Ready Web Access in OpenHuman Through the Bright Data CLI") [AI Antonello Zanini Technical Writer ### Production-Ready Web Access in OpenHuman Through the Bright Data CLI Integrate Bright Data CLI with OpenHuman to enable production-ready web access and data collection for AI agents. 09-Sep-2026 12 min read ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/openhuman-with-bright-data) [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/minimax-m3-with-bright-data "Giving self-hosted MiniMax M3 agents live web access with Bright Data") [AI Satyam Tripathi Technical Writer ### Giving self-hosted MiniMax M3 agents live web access with Bright Data Self-hosted MiniMax M3 agents get live web access using Bright Data’s search and scraping tools. Bypass blocks and CAPTCHAs. 09-Sep-2026 54 min read ](https://brightdata.com/blog/ai/minimax-m3-with-bright-data) [ ](https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/multimodal-web-scraping-with-minimax "Multimodal Web Scraping with MiniMax") [Web Data Antonello Zanini Technical Writer ### Multimodal Web Scraping with MiniMax Pair Bright Data Web Unlocker with MiniMax M3 vision to extract structured data from images and web page screenshots. 09-Sep-2026 4 min read ](https://brightdata.com/blog/web-data/multimodal-web-scraping-with-minimax)