WINDOWS: [system] (in the "motex" library) LINUX & OSX: [shell] (in the "ggee" library)
Yes, you can, but it is not portable (as it requires different solutions depending on platform) and requires additional filesystem interactions. Using [shell] (or [system] for that matter) has all kinds of side effects, like [shell] searches scripts relative to Pd start location instead of relative to Pd patch. I wouldn't recommend using those
you are right, it's more like a workaround/hack in case nothing else works. and it involves some tweaking, that's true.
for the purpose of http-downloading, one would also need a 3rd party commandline program like "wget" (at least for windows, as it's not native).
anyway, i just thought i'd add this method to the suggestions.
best
oliver