Install curl without being root

There are options for installing software without root access. First of all, using the sources (if available) you can build and use most packages as a non-root user -- but this "from sources" way forces you to deal with dependencies, as well. Starting from that, pkgsrc makes this easier, by offering a large number of, say, recipes to build packages and their dependencies (so-called "ports"). It supports non-root operation, see this FAQ entry. There is a guide on how to use pkgsrc here.

Regarding the packages you're looking for, they have "ports" in pkgsrc: wip/chromium, net/skype21. (Where Chromium, the Open Source project related to Google Chrome, is available as a work-in-progress package only, i.e. via wip.sf.net, a repository of additional ports to pkgsrc.

Also, there is ZeroInstall, which as far as I know provides binary packages that you can install in some way not requiring root permissions. (Of course you need to install ZeroInstall first, which you can -- if your sysadmin doesn't install the zeroinstall-injector Debian package for you -- install from source, too, as explained here.) I'm not sure if this way is less involved, though. (From a quick look, they seem to have Chromium and Skype packages, but the first one looks kind of old.)

The bottom line: it is possible, but involves some work and things to learn (which can be considered a good thing, while time-consuming). The easiest way probably is calling your sysadmin to install the Debian packages you want to use.

Other answers show how to download and compile dos2unix, but if you're simply looking to convert files from DOS-style line endings (CR-LF) to Unix-style line endings, there are several other approaches which shouldn't involve installing anything:

• if you have tr:

  tr -d '\r' < input > output
  

• if you have Perl:

  perl -pi -e 's/\r\n/\n/g' input
  

  (which converts the file in-place, same as dos2unix)

• if you have sed:

  sed -i 's/^M$//' input
  

  where you'd press CtrlV then CtrlM to get ^M.