Downloading the Latest Version of Perl

Perl is available on over 100 different platforms.

Perl on Linux, Unix like and Mac OS X based systems:

If you are using a Linux (or Unix like) system, including Mac OS X, Perl is probably already installed. Open a terminal (on OSX this is Applications-»Utilities-»Terminal) and on the command line type 'perl -v', this will show you which version of Perl you already have installed.

You really want a Perl version greater than 5.8 if possible, otherwise use your systems package manager to upgrade or find the relevant port for your system.

Perl on Windows based systerms:

For Win32 based systems there are two binary distributions available.

Strawberry Perl - this is a 100% Open Source Perl for Windows. It includes the ability to install modules from CPAN, and does not require any additional software to do this. Other Windows Perl users are available to help with Perl on Windows. They can be found on the #win32 irc channel to which access is available though a web browser or windows IRC client.
Download Strawberry Perl
ActiveState's ActivePerl is a commercially supported Perl distribution. In addition to Windows they also provide Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX distributions.
Download ActivePerl

Other platforms:

There are ports and binary distributions available for many other platforms.

Source code:

You can download and build your own Perl from the Perl source code
If you wish to you can use the latest development release of the source code.

Source licence

Perl is Open Source software. Perl's license is the Artistic license. It is free for you to download and use as you wish.

Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN)

Once you have Perl installed you will want to use CPAN, this repository of Perl software is one of Perl's core strengths. Modules are available for many different tasks, you can search CPAN. If you are unsure where to start Task::Kensho is simple to install and will give you a good set of modern Perl modules you should consider using.