Are there alternative methods to using FTP for transferring files from a server to a local machine using PHP?

Using FTP for transferring files from a server to a local machine can sometimes be cumbersome and insecure. An alternative method is to use cURL, a library that allows you to transfer data with URLs. With cURL, you can easily download files from a server to a local machine securely and efficiently.

<?php
$url = 'http://example.com/file-to-download.txt';
$localFilePath = 'local-file.txt';

$ch = curl_init($url);
$fp = fopen($localFilePath, 'w');

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

curl_exec($ch);

curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);
?>