Anyone installing PHP is likely to be doing so on a webserver. The odds are
that they aren't running X, or any GUI on that server at all. It's often
a colo server in a datacenter, accessed via ssh. There's no graphical
web browser running on that box.
Given that, the only reasonable way to download a distribution to that
box is using a command line tool such as curl. The php.net mirror site
chooser defeats that by refusing to divulge a working URL that can be
cut and pasted into another window.
It would be a nice enhancement to display a final download URL for each
mirror.
Do you start from
http://php.net/ when you download PHP?
Goba