A wget replacement for OS X Leopard

By on September 16, 2008 in apple

If, like me, you are missing wget since you upgraded to Leopard, then should set up an alias for wget to curl -O which does exactly the same thing:

echo 'alias wget="curl -O"' >> ~/.bash_profile

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8 Responses to A wget replacement for OS X Leopard

  1. David Dixon September 20, 2008 at 9:36 pm #

    Give Macports a try mate, then you can get all your linux goodies without any need for workarounds :)

  2. Willem February 1, 2009 at 6:12 am #

    I recently posted an article on how to easily install wget in OS X Leopard using MacPorts (a.k.a. DarwinPorts) if you�re interested: http://www.geekology.co.za/blog/2009/02/macports-compile-and-install-open-source-software-on-mac-os-x/

  3. Bill February 16, 2009 at 4:08 am #

    Why not just install wget yourself. You could use Macports I guess as well.
    http://www.statusq.org/archives/2008/07/30/1954/

  4. Breckenridge May 5, 2009 at 4:38 am #

    Curl is better than wget for the following reasons:

    1. Uses libcurl a cross platform library
    2. curl sends more stuff to stdout and reads more from stdin
    3. curl supports ftp, ftps, http, https, scp sftp, tftp, telnet, dict, ldap and ldaps while wget supports only http, https and ftp
    4. curl has ssl support
    5. libcurl supports more http authentication methods
    6. Curl is bidirectional while wget offers http post support only
    7. Curl has more development activities.

    The one advantage I see in using wget is it’s ability to download recursively.

    In short curl is better and more powerful. I actually have both on my os x, just cannot remember the last time I used wget.

  5. Jean December 17, 2009 at 10:08 am #

    I am so sorry.

    Saying “which does exactly the same thing” only shows that you failed to grasp wget’s full power.
    It lies within its ability to download recursively.

    This kind of alias is not even close to wget’s capabilities.

    However, I acknowledge that it will work on a single file download.
    Thus, if I may, I would suggest to change your statement (especially the word ‘exactely’) for something that reflects the reality exposed above.

  6. Paul Maunders December 18, 2009 at 10:42 am #

    True, I should clarify that I mean’t it does the same thing as running wget with no arguments other than the file yuowish to download.

  7. Amit Pansare January 8, 2010 at 12:25 am #

    Useful alias – thanks.

    What if you get wget later on….
    Avoid using popular program names for aliases.

  8. aussieaubs January 29, 2010 at 11:15 pm #

    maybe just use the os x package installer – its universal and for 10.5 leopard or greater – both intel and power-pc.

    http://www.merenbach.com/software/wget

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