How to install wget on a Debian or Ubuntu Linux

Update your systems and apt repos

The syntax is as follows to update to resynchronize the package index files from their sources:
$ sudo apt-get update
# Install the newest versions of all packages currently installed#
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Installing wget on a Debian Linux

You need to use the apt-get command/apt command to install any package including wget. You can search for package name using the apt-cache command. The syntax is:
$ apt-cache search {package}
$ apt-cache search wget
$ apt-cache search wget | grep wget
$ apt search wget
Sample outputs:

Fig.01: apt-cache search command search performs a full text search on all available package lists

Finding information about wget

Simply run the following command:
$ sudo apt info wget
## or use the apt-cache command ##
$ sudo apt-cache show wget

Package: wget
Architecture: amd64
Version: 1.20.3-1ubuntu1
Multi-Arch: foreign
Priority: standard
Section: web
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Noël Köthe <noel@debian.org>
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Installed-Size: 992
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.17), libidn2-0 (>= 0.6), libpcre2-8-0 (>= 10.32), libpsl5 (>= 0.16.0), libssl1.1 (>= 1.1.0), libuuid1 (>= 2.16), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
Recommends: ca-certificates
Conflicts: wget-ssl
Filename: pool/main/w/wget/wget_1.20.3-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
Size: 348824
MD5sum: ae9eb859432505828dab97c80edcb5b5
SHA1: 45504b6e948d4f1a7e2ba0233bb57a67b392ceea
SHA256: 68144dde6d45e1a54fa983d6d10be7043e6695e259c8d2b12fd03ea5e475d56a
Homepage: https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
Description-en: retrieves files from the web
 Wget is a network utility to retrieve files from the web
 using HTTP(S) and FTP, the two most widely used internet
 protocols. It works non-interactively, so it will work in
 the background, after having logged off. The program supports
 recursive retrieval of web-authoring pages as well as FTP
 sites -- you can use Wget to make mirrors of archives and
 home pages or to travel the web like a WWW robot.
 .
 Wget works particularly well with slow or unstable connections
 by continuing to retrieve a document until the document is fully
 downloaded. Re-getting files from where it left off works on
 servers (both HTTP and FTP) that support it. Both HTTP and FTP
 retrievals can be time stamped, so Wget can see if the remote
 file has changed since the last retrieval and automatically
 retrieve the new version if it has.
 .
 Wget supports proxy servers; this can lighten the network load,
 speed up retrieval, and provide access behind firewalls.
Description-md5: 63a4a740bcd9e8e94bf661e4f1806e02
Task: standard

How to install wget on a Debian or Ubuntu Linux

The second last result indicate that the package name is wget. To install wget package use the following syntax:
$ sudo apt-get install {package-name-here}
OR directly run as root user:
# apt-get install {package-name-here}
For example, install wget using the apt-get command/apt command command line as follows:
$ sudo apt install wget
OR
$ sudo apt-get install wget
Sample outputs:

Fig.02: Installing wget on a Debian or Ubuntu Linux

How to use wget command

Once installed you can grab or download file using the following syntax
wget http://url/file
wget [options] https://www.cyberciti.biz/
wget ftp://domain/file.tar.gz
See the following wget command related tutorials for more info:

1. How to use wget command
2. How To Use wget With Username and Password for FTP / HTTP File Retrieval
3. Run wget In Background For an Unattended Download of Files on Linux and Unix
4. Use wget Command To Download Files From HTTPS Domains
5. Wget: Resume Broken Download

Removing wget command

We can reverse installation by typing any one of the following command to get rid of the wget command:
$ sudo apt-get remove wget
## or ##
$ sudo apt remove wget
Sample outputs:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  wget
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 3335 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 14429 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing wget (1.20.1-1.1) ...

Conclusion

We shown you have to install wget on Ubuntu or Debian Linux using the command line. See wget home page for more information.