"Instead of cat, which reads a file from the file-system, use wget -O- -q, which reads a document over HTTP and writes it to standard output:

for i in $(wget -O- -q http://localhost/1/downloads.txt)

(The -O... option means "write to the specified file", where - is standard output; the -q option means "quiet", and disables lots of logging that would otherwise go to standard error.)
"

Here's the original q/a:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8978261/how-can-i-cat-a-remote-file-to-read-the-
parameters-in-bash

Tried it myself and found that to read one specific file I did this:

wget -O- -q http://localhost/1/downloads.txt