[R] wininet deprecation

[Selke, Gisbert W.]

On Mon, 20 Feb 2023 15:58:33 +0000, Stadler Thomas <thomas.stadler using vpbank.com> wrote:

> as the download method 'wininet' is deprecated,  I'm looking into alternative ways to install packages from within R.
> Unfortunately, curl, libcurl and wget refuse to cooperate with Kerberos on our corporate setup.
> When exactly will the 'wininet' method stop working? R release 4.3?
Same problem here. It has been reported before to be a major nuisance if you're working in an environment with a need for security and data protection.
Unfortunately, it seems it has been decided to go for this regression of functionality.

In our case we managed to circumnavigate the problem by building a local CRAN mirror inside our firewall using the open source Nexus repository. Seems a bit overkill (given that wininet has done the trick nicely up to now), but at least it works.

HTH.

\Gisbert