To workaround wget security issues and curl lack of strict SSL by default, Whonix provides scurl wrapper script, which invokes curl with a few prepared command line parameters, allowing simple secure downloads.
It was a nice approach, until T673 phabricator task was resolved by this commit:
add --remote-name so scurl can be used as wget replacement
And here the problem comes: this parameter enforces file saving and cannot be canceled by subsequent parameters if a user ever wants to prevent this.
This new behavior broke a lot of instructions and examples in Whonix Wiki using scurl. As well as any manual replacement of curl with scurl for better security.
E.g. it broke test of per-process stream isolation:
scurl https://check.torproject.org | grep IP
Now it even gives an error: it can’t save output to file cause can’t get a filename from URL.
So it spread outside the scurl Wiki page now (where all scurl commands are broken foremost, of course).
It broke the whole philosophy of original approach reflected in a wrapper name
“scurl” == “secure curl”, which meant transparent replacement for curl with more strict policy for protocols only. File auto-saving is completely new and additional functionality outside of this concept, and should be solved the other way.
And it was! Later there was added scurl-download wrapper (together with curl-download), which adds the same --remote-name parameter (along with --location to follow redirects). Corresponding documentation has also been added into Whonix Wiki.
But this parameter still remains in main scurl wrapper as well 
Please fix this.
- Consider removing
--remote-nameparameter from mainscurlwrapper. - Maybe consider renaming
scurl-download/curl-download, or adding symlinks with short and simple names, likescurld/curldorscurlget/curlget— in case you need a short replacement forwgetcommand, and long name with dash is inconvenient here for regular users. - Consider improving
scurl-download/curl-downloadwrappers:- Replace
--remote-nameparameter with--remote-name-all, which activates the same behavior for all given URLs (for multiple downloads), also allows to cancel it for any URL (by"-o -"or--no-remote-name). - Add
--remote-header-nameparameter, which tells curl to try to get server-specified filename first (viaContent-Dispositionheader) and then extract from URL on failure only — this will allow to download dynamically generated files, “attachments”, etc.
- Replace
And that time it will be easier, since I learned a lot.