Do you install PHP cURL by default?

UPDATE: we are now offering/installing cURL on ALL client servers at LittleBizzy due to several popular plugins refusing to do away with it… we hope within the next few years we can 100% stop using cURL on our client servers, though.

At LittleBizzy we don’t include any PHP modules in our default server setups to maintain higher security and performance standards. The more software you install on a server (or computer) the higher the risk is for getting hacked, exploited with malware, or otherwise. It means one more application that requires monitoring, regular software upgrades, and so forth. cURL in particular regularly has security vulnerabilities, not necessarily because of its own fault (but sometimes) but because of the poor coding included in many WordPress themes and plugins. This opens your server up to DDOS attacks, exploits, injections, and worse. If you require cURL, please ask us to install it on your server (each time). WordPress has not required cURL for a few years already, so any theme or plugin still requiring cURL is in fact BREAKING WordPress coding standards.