reduce use of double quotes

- mostly by just removing them

- in some instances use italics instead

- in some cases rephrase

build/autotools.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Autotools
 
-The "Autotools" are a collection of different tools that used together generate
+The Autotools are a collection of different tools that used together generate
 the `configure` script. The configure script is run by the user who wants to
 build curl and it does a whole bunch of things:
 
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ build curl and it does a whole bunch of things:
    built to use.
 
  - It specifies on which file path the generated installation should be placed
-   when ultimately the build is made and "make install" is invoked.
+   when ultimately the build is made and `make install` is invoked.
 
 In the most basic usage, just running `./configure` in the source directory is
 enough. When the script completes, it outputs a summary of what options it has
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ setup for the particular target system for which you want to build. How to get
 and install that system is not covered in this book.
 
 Once you have a cross compiler, you can instruct configure to use that
-compiler instead of the "native" compiler when it builds curl so that the end
+compiler instead of the native compiler when it builds curl so that the end
 result then can be moved over and used on the other machine.
 
 ## Static linking

build/tls.md

@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ point configure to a custom install path prefix where it can find BearSSL:
 
     ./configure --with-rustls
 
-When told to use "rustls", curl is actually trying to find and use the
+When told to use rustls, curl is actually trying to find and use the
 rustls-ffi library - the C API for the rustls library. configure detects
 rustls-ffi in its default path by default. You can optionally point configure
 to a custom install path prefix where it can find rustls-ffi:

cmdline/urls/auth.md

@@ -12,5 +12,5 @@ also allows that information to be provide with normal command-line options,
 outside of the URL.
 
 If you want a non-ASCII letter or maybe a `:` or `@` as part of the user name
-and/or password, remember to "URL-encode" that letter: write it as `%HH` where
+and/or password, remember to URL encode that letter: write it as `%HH` where
 `HH` is the hexadecimal byte value. `:` is `%3a` and `@` is `%40`.

cmdline/urls/fragment.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Fragment
 
-URLs offer a fragment part. That is usually seen as a hash symbol (#) and a
+URLs offer a fragment part. That is usually seen as a hash symbol (`#`) and a
 name for a specific name within a webpage in browsers. An example of such a
 URL might look like:
 
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ the fragment, make sure to pass it URL-encoded, as `%23`:
 
     curl https://www.example.com/info.html%23the-plot
 
-## The "fragment trick"
+## A fragment trick
 
 The fact that the fragment part is not actually used over the network can be
 taken advantage of when you craft command lines.

ftp.md

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ actual data transfer.
 ## Transfer mode
 
 When an FTP client is about to transfer data, it specifies to the server which
-"transfer mode" it would like the upcoming transfer to use. The two transfer
+transfer mode it would like the upcoming transfer to use. The two transfer
 modes curl supports are 'ASCII' and 'BINARY'. Ascii is for text and usually
 means that the server sends the files with converted newlines while binary
 means sending the data unaltered and assuming the file is not text.
@@ -37,10 +37,10 @@ instead with `-B, --use-ascii` or by making sure the URL ends with `;type=A`.
 ## Authentication
 
 FTP is one of the protocols you normally do not access without a user name and
-password. It just happens that for systems that allow "anonymous" FTP access
-you can login with pretty much any name and password you like. When curl is
-used on an FTP URL to do transfer without any given user name or password, it
-uses the name `anonymous` with the password `ftp@example.com`.
+password. It just happens that for systems that allow anonymous FTP access you
+can login with pretty much any name and password you like. When curl is used
+on an FTP URL to do transfer without any given user name or password, it uses
+the name `anonymous` with the password `ftp@example.com`.
 
 If you want to provide another user name and password, you can pass them on to
 curl either with the `-u, --user` option or embed the info in the URL:

ftp/cmds.md

@@ -29,10 +29,9 @@ the FTP command with a dash:
 
     curl -Q -NOOP ftp://example.com/file
 
-The third "position in time" that curl offers to send the commands, is after
-curl has changed the working directory, just **before the commands** that kick
-off the transfer are sent. To send command then, prefix the command with a '+'
-(plus).
+curl also offers to send commands after it changes the working directory, just
+**before the commands** that kick off the transfer are sent. To send command
+then, prefix the command with a '+' (plus).
 
 ## A series of commands
 
@@ -53,7 +52,7 @@ Example, rename a file then do a transfer:
 You can opt to send individual quote commands that are allowed to fail, to get
 an error returned from the server without causing everything to stop.
 
-You make the command "fallible" by prefixing it with an asterisk (`*`). For
+You make the command fallible by prefixing it with an asterisk (`*`). For
 example, send a delete (`DELE`) after a transfer and allow it to fail:
 
     curl -Q "-*DELE file" ftp://example.com/moo

ftp/twoconnections.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ several reasons.
 ## Active connections
 
 The client can opt to ask the server to connect to the client to set it up, a
-so-called "active" connection. This is done with the PORT or EPRT
+so-called *active* connection. This is done with the PORT or EPRT
 commands. Allowing a remote host to connect back to a client on a port that
 the client opens up requires that there is no firewall or other network
 appliance in between that refuses that to go through and that is far from
@@ -30,10 +30,11 @@ command than PORT) with the `--no-eprt` command-line option.
 
 ## Passive connections
 
-Curl defaults to asking for a "passive" connection, which means it sends a
+Curl defaults to asking for a *passive* connection, which means it sends a
 PASV or EPSV command to the server and then the server opens up a new port for
 the second connection that then curl connects to. Outgoing connections to a
-new port are generally easier and less restricted for end users and clients, but it then requires that the network in the server's end allows it.
+new port are generally easier and less restricted for end users and clients
+but requires that the network in the server's end allows it.
 
 Passive connections are enabled by default, but if you have switched on active
 before, you can switch back to passive with `--ftp-pasv`.

get/linux.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 # Linux
 
-Linux distributions come with "packager managers" that let you install
-software that they offer. Most Linux distributions offer curl and libcurl to
-be installed if they are not installed by default.
+Linux distributions come with packager managers that let you install software
+that they offer. Most Linux distributions offer curl and libcurl to be
+installed if they are not installed by default.
 
 ## Ubuntu and Debian
 

get/win-vcpkg.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 [Vcpkg](https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/) helps you manage C and C++
 libraries on Windows, Linux and MacOS.
 
-There is no "curl" package on vcpkg, only libcurl.
+There is no curl package on vcpkg, only libcurl.
 
 ## Install libcurl
 

http/altsvc.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 [RFC 7838](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7838.txt) defines an HTTP header
 which lets a server tell a client that there is one or more *alternatives* for
-that server at "another place" with the use of the `Alt-Svc:` response header.
+that server at another place with the use of the `Alt-Svc:` response header.
 
 The *alternatives* the server suggests can include a server running on another
 port on the same host, on another completely different hostname and it can

http/auth.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ option to provide user name and password (separated with a colon). Like this:
 
     curl --user daniel:secret http://example.com/
 
-This makes curl use the default "Basic" HTTP authentication method. Yes, it is
+This makes curl use the default *Basic* HTTP authentication method. Yes, it is
 actually called Basic and it is truly basic. To explicitly ask for the basic
 method, use `--basic`.
 

http/conditionals.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 Sometimes users want to avoid downloading a file again if the same file maybe
 already has been downloaded the day before. This can be done by making the
-HTTP transfer "conditioned" on something. curl supports two different
+HTTP transfer conditioned on something. curl supports two different
 conditions: the file timestamp and etag.
 
 ## Check by modification date
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ remote file had:
 
 ## Check by modification of content
 
-HTTP servers can return a specific "ETag" for a given resource version. If the
+HTTP servers can return a specific *ETag* for a given resource version. If the
 resource at a given URL changes, a new Etag value must be generated, so a
 client knows that as long as the ETag remains the same, the content has not
 changed.
@@ -46,8 +46,8 @@ or file dates. It also then makes the check able to detect sub-second changes,
 which the timestamp based checks cannot.
 
 Using curl you can download a remote file and save its ETag (if it provides
-any) in a separate "cache" by using the `--etag-save` command line
-option. Like this:
+any) in a separate cache by using the `--etag-save` command line option. Like
+this:
 
     curl --etag-save etags.txt https://example.com/file -o output
 

http/cookies.md

@@ -13,16 +13,17 @@ important for how long the cookie should live on.
 
 The expiry of a cookie is either set to a fixed time in the future (or to live
 a number of seconds) or it gets no expiry at all. A cookie without an expire
-time is called a "session cookie" and is meant to live during the "session" but not longer. A session in this aspect is typically thought to be the life
-time of the browser used to view a site. When you close the browser, you end
-your session. Doing HTTP operations with a command-line client that supports
+time is called a session cookie and is meant to live during the *session* but
+not longer. A session in this aspect is typically thought to be the life time
+of the browser used to view a site. When you close the browser, you end your
+session. Doing HTTP operations with a command-line client that supports
 cookies begs the question of when a session really ends…
 
 ## Cookie engine
 
 The general concept of curl only doing the bare minimum unless you tell it
 differently makes it not acknowledge cookies by default. You need to switch on
-"the cookie engine" to make curl keep track of cookies it receives and then
+the cookie engine to make curl keep track of cookies it receives and then
 subsequently send them out on requests that have matching cookies.
 
 You enable the cookie engine by asking curl to read or write cookies. If you
@@ -60,8 +61,8 @@ of the same input file would use the original cookie contents again.
 
 ## Writing cookies to file
 
-The place where cookies are stored is sometimes referred to as the "cookie
-jar". When you enable the cookie engine in curl and it has received cookies,
+The place where cookies are stored is sometimes referred to as the cookie
+jar. When you enable the cookie engine in curl and it has received cookies,
 you can instruct curl to write down all its known cookies to a file, the
 cookie jar, before it exits. It is important to remember that curl only
 updates the output cookie jar on exit and not during its lifetime, no matter

http/https.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # HTTPS
 
-HTTPS is in effect Secure HTTP. The "secure" part means that the TCP transport
+HTTPS is in effect Secure HTTP. The secure part means that the TCP transport
 layer is enhanced to provide authentication, privacy (encryption) and data
 integrity by the use of TLS.
 

http/modify/fragment.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 # Fragment
 
-A URL may contain an "anchor", also known as a fragment, which is written with
-a pound sign and string at the end of the URL. Like for example
+A URL may contain an anchor, also known as a fragment, which is written with a
+pound sign and string at the end of the URL. Like for example
 `http://example.com/foo.html#here-it-is`. That fragment part, everything from
 the pound/hash sign to the end of the URL, is only intended for local use and
 is not sent over the network. curl simply strips that data off and discards

http/multipart.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 # Multipart formposts
 
 A multipart formpost is what an HTTP client sends when an HTML form is
-submitted with *enctype* set to "multipart/form-data". It is an HTTP POST
-request sent with the request body specially formatted as a series of "parts",
+submitted with *enctype* set to `multipart/form-data`. It is an HTTP POST
+request sent with the request body specially formatted as a series of parts,
 separated with MIME boundaries.
 
 An example piece of HTML would look like this:
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ The **Expect** header is explained in the [Expect 100 continue](post/expect100.m
 chapter.
 
 The **Content-Type** header is a bit special. It tells that this is a
-multipart formpost and then it sets the "boundary" string. The boundary string
+multipart formpost and then it sets the boundary string. The boundary string
 is a line of characters with a bunch of random digits somewhere in it, that
 serves as a separator between the different parts of the form that is
 submitted. The particular boundary you see in this example has the random part
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ to submit a multipart form as seen in HTML.
    instance. Submit the form and watch how `nc` shows it. Then translate into
    a curl command line.
 
-2. Use the "development tools" in your favorite browser and inspect the POST
+2. Use the development tools in your favorite browser and inspect the POST
    request in the network tab after you have submitted it. Then convert that
    HTTP data to a curl command line. Unfortunately, the
    [copy as curl](../usingcurl/copyas.md) feature in the browsers usually do
@@ -129,20 +129,20 @@ An example action looks like this:
 
 If the form is found in a webpage hosted on a URL like for example
 `https://example.com/user/login` the `action=submit.cgi` is a relative path
-within the same "directory" as the form itself. The full URL to submit this
-form thus becomes `https://example.com/user/submit.cgi`. That is the URL to
-use in the curl command line.
+within the same directory as the form itself. The full URL to submit this form
+thus becomes `https://example.com/user/submit.cgi`. That is the URL to use in
+the curl command line.
 
 Next, you must identify every `<input>` tag used within the form, including
-the ones that are marked as "hidden". Hidden just means that they are not
-shown in the webpage, but they should still be sent in the POST.
+the ones that are marked as hidden. Hidden just means that they are not shown
+in the webpage, but they should still be sent in the POST.
 
 For every `<input>` in the form there should be a corresponding `-F` in the
 command line.
 
 ### text input
 
-A regular tag using type "text" in the style like
+A regular tag using type text in the style like
 
     <input type="text" name="person">
 
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ should then set the field name with content like this:
 
 ### file input
 
-When the input type is set to a "file", like in:
+When the input type is set to a file, like in:
 
     <input type="file" name="image">
 

http/postvspost.md

@@ -25,17 +25,17 @@ type=file>` tag, for file uploads.
 
 The default `enctype` used by forms, which is rarely spelled out in HTML since
 it is default, is `application/x-www-form-urlencoded`. It makes the browser
-"URL encode" the input as name=value pairs with the data encoded to avoid
-unsafe characters. We often refer to that as a [regular POST](post.md),
-and you perform one with curl's `-d` and friends.
+URL encode the input as name=value pairs with the data encoded to avoid unsafe
+characters. We often refer to that as a [regular POST](post.md), and you
+perform one with curl's `-d` and friends.
 
 ## POST outside of HTML
 
 POST is a regular HTTP method and there is no requirement that it be triggered
 by HTML or involve a browser. Lots of services, APIs and other systems allow
 you to pass in data these days in order to get things done.
 
-If these services expect plain "raw" data or perhaps data formatted as JSON or
+If these services expect plain raw data or perhaps data formatted as JSON or
 similar, you want the [regular POST](post.md) approach. curl's `-d` option
 does not alter or encode the data at all but just sends exactly what you tell
 it to. Just pay attention that `-d` sets a default `Content-Type:` that might

http/response.md

@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ response code would indicate that the requested document could not be
 delivered (or similar). curl considers a successful sending and receiving of
 HTTP to be good.
 
-The first digit of the HTTP response code is a kind of "error class":
+The first digit of the HTTP response code is a kind of error class:
 
  - 1xx: transient response, more is coming
  - 2xx: success
@@ -55,13 +55,13 @@ numeric range and you can use `--write-out` to extract that code as well.
 
 ## Chunked transfer encoding
 
-An HTTP 1.1 server can decide to respond with a "chunked" encoded response, a
+An HTTP 1.1 server can decide to respond with a chunked encoded response, a
 feature that was not present in HTTP 1.0.
 
 When receiving a chunked response, there is no Content-Length: for the
 response to indicate its size. Instead, there is a `Transfer-Encoding:
 chunked` header that tells curl there is chunked data coming and then in the
-response body, the data comes in a series of "chunks". Every individual chunk
+response body, the data comes in a series of chunks. Every individual chunk
 starts with the size of that particular chunk (in hexadecimal), then a newline
 and then the contents of the chunk. This is repeated over and over until the
 end of the response, which is signaled with a zero sized chunk. The point of

http/versions/http2.md

@@ -20,9 +20,9 @@ To ask a server to use HTTP/2, just:
 If your curl does not support HTTP/2, that command line tool returns an error
 saying so. Running `curl -V` shows if your version of curl supports it.
 
-If you by some chance already know that your server speaks HTTP/2 (for example,
-within your own controlled environment where you know exactly what runs in
-your machines) you can shortcut the HTTP/2 "negotiation" with
+If you by some chance already know that your server speaks HTTP/2 (for
+example, within your own controlled environment where you know exactly what
+runs in your machines) you can shortcut the HTTP/2 negotiation with
 `--http2-prior-knowledge`.
 
 ## Multiplexing

internals/backends.md

@@ -33,10 +33,10 @@ functionality. In these different areas there are multiple different providers:
 Applications (in the upper yellow cloud) access libcurl through the public
 API. The API is fixed and stable.
 
-Internally, the "core" of libcurl uses internal APIs to perform the different
+Internally, the core of libcurl uses internal APIs to perform the different
 duties it needs to do. Each of these internal APIs are powered by alternative
 implementations, in many times powered by different third party libraries.
 
 The image above shows the different third party libraries powering different
-internal APIs. The purple boxes are "one or more" and the dark gray ones are
+internal APIs. The purple boxes are one or more and the dark gray ones are
 "one of these".

internals/caches.md

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ slow) resolve operation again. This cache exists in memory only.
 
 ## connection cache
 
-Also known as the connection pool. This is where curl puts "live connections"
+Also known as the connection pool. This is where curl puts live connections
 after a transfer is complete so that a subsequent transfer might be able to
 use an already existing connection instead of having to set a new one up. When
 a connection is reused, curl avoids name lookups, TLS handshakes and more.