GNU R modern and flexible web client for R

 The curl() and curl_download() functions provide highly configurable drop-
 in replacements for base url() and download.file() with better
 performance, support for encryption (https, ftps), gzip compression,
 authentication, and other libcurl goodies. The core of the package
 implements a framework for performing fully customized requests where
 data can be processed either in memory, on disk, or streaming via the
 callback or connection interfaces. Some knowledge of libcurl is
 recommended; for a more-user-friendly web client see the 'httr' package
 which builds on this package with http specific tools and logic.