Every way to curl your card

Windows

PowerShell - Shorthand (Invoke-RestMethod)

Built into Windows 10 & 11. irm is the standard alias for Invoke-RestMethod and returns parsed content directly.

irm curltact.com/elvispresley

PowerShell - Full form (Invoke-WebRequest)

Useful when you need headers or HTTP status codes alongside the body via .Content.

(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri curltact.com/elvispresley).Content

curl.exe - built into Windows 10 1803+

In PowerShell, curl is an alias for Invoke-WebRequest - always call curl.exe explicitly:

[Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8; curl.exe --compressed curltact.com/elvispresley

Legacy / native - certutil & bitsadmin

These write to a file rather than stdout. Run in cmd.exe:

certutil - downloads to a file, then prints it

certutil -urlcache -split -f curltact.com/elvispresley card.txt && type card.txt

bitsadmin - deprecated, but often still present

Saves the response to card.txt in the current directory:

bitsadmin /transfer job /download /priority normal curltact.com/elvispresley %cd%\card.txt

WSL users can use any of the standard Linux commands in the first section.

Mobile Devices - Android & iOS / iPadOS

Android - Termux

Install Termux from F-Droid (recommended) or Google Play, then run:

# 1. Update packages & install curl
pkg update && pkg install curl -y

# 2. Fetch your card
curl curltact.com/elvispresley

iOS / iPadOS - a-Shell

Install a-Shell - includes curl out of the box:

# a-Shell includes curl by default
curl curltact.com/elvispresley

iOS / iPadOS - iSH

Install iSH (Alpine Linux), then:

# 1. Update repositories & install curl
apk update && apk add curl

# 2. Fetch your card
curl curltact.com/elvispresley

Native Tools for Minimal Environments - Docker, air-gapped hosts, restricted shells

For systems without a compiled HTTP client - raw socket and TLS approaches:

OpenSSL - HTTPS via raw TLS handshake

printf 'GET /elvispresley HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: curltact.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n' \
  | openssl s_client -quiet -connect curltact.com:443 2>/dev/null

/dev/tcp - bash/zsh built-in, HTTP only (no HTTPS)

exec 3<>/dev/tcp/curltact.com/80
printf 'GET /elvispresley HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: curltact.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n' >&3
cat <&3

socat - HTTPS via openssl-engine

echo -e "GET /elvispresley HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: curltact.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n" \
  | socat - OPENSSL:curltact.com:443,verify=0

Scripting Languages - when CLI tools are unavailable

If compiled CLI clients are missing, reach for a runtime one-liner. All of the following require a full URI - http:// or https:// prefix is mandatory.

Python 3 - urllib from the standard library

python3 -c "import urllib.request;print(urllib.request.urlopen('https://curltact.com/elvispresley').read().decode())"

Node.js - global fetch (Node 18+)

node -e "fetch('https://curltact.com/elvispresley').then(r=>r.text()).then(console.log)"

Perl - LWP::Simple

Install with cpanm LWP::Simple if not already present.

perl -MLWP::Simple -e 'print get("https://curltact.com/elvispresley")'

Ruby - open-uri from stdlib

ruby -ropen-uri -e 'puts URI.open("https://curltact.com/elvispresley").read'

PHP - file_get_contents over HTTP(S)

Requires allow_url_fopen = On in php.ini.

php -r 'echo file_get_contents("https://curltact.com/elvispresley");'

Terminal Browsers - viewing your card in a text UI

When you want to render the page rather than just fetch the source. Using -dump prints the formatted text directly to stdout.

lynx - the classic text browser

lynx -dump curltact.com/elvispresley

links - alternate text browser

links -dump https://curltact.com/elvispresley

Tip: Omit the -dump flag to open the URL interactively, e.g., lynx curltact.com/elvispresley

BSDs

# FreeBSD native 'fetch'
fetch -qo - curltact.com/elvispresley

# OpenBSD 'ftp' (doubles as an HTTP/HTTPS client)
ftp -o - curltact.com/elvispresley

# nc with TLS (OpenBSD nc supports -c for TLS via libressl)
printf 'GET /elvispresley HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: curltact.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n' | nc -c curltact.com 443