Which command is used to download a file from the internet in Linux?

The command used to download a file from the internet in Linux is widely recognized as wget. It is a command-line tool that retrieves content from web servers and is particularly useful for downloading files via HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols. wget is known for its ability to download files non-interactively, meaning it can operate in the background without requiring user intervention, which is helpful for downloading large files or in scripts.

While curl is also a correct tool for downloading files, it is often used for more than just downloading, such as interacting with APIs and sending data to web servers. Therefore, it is typically regarded alongside wget as another method but is not the primary choice for simple file downloads by many users.

The options scp and ftp are alternatives primarily for file transfers, but they are not as straightforward for downloading files from the web as wget. scp is used for secure copy between machines over SSH, while ftp works with the File Transfer Protocol, which is less commonly used today due to security concerns compared to HTTP/S.

Thus, the best choice for straightforward downloading of files from the internet in Linux, particularly for those seeking a dedicated and optimized tool for this purpose, is `wget