PHP cURL vs file_get_contents

file_get_contents() is a simple screwdriver. Great for simple GET requests where the header, HTTP request method, timeout, cookiejar, redirects, and other important things do not matter.

fopen() with a stream context or cURL with setopt are powerdrills with every bit and option you can think of.

In addition to this, due to some recent website hacks we had to secure our sites more. In doing so, we discovered that file_get_contents failed to work, where curl still would work.

Not 100%, but I believe that this php.ini setting may have been blocking the file_get_contents request.

; Disable allow_url_fopen for security reasons
allow_url_fopen = 0

Either way, our code now works with curl.