Ruby/libcurl is Ruby extention for libcurl supporting HTTP FTP SSL. You can get html file from http server. You can post strings to CGI. with proxy, SSL, auth, cookie... You can (get|put) files (from|to) ftp server. Easy to write "Web Robot" Get Ruby/libcurl 7.15.1 from rbCurl-7.15.1.tgz tested on FreeBSD Debian GNU/Linux Cygwin example require 'curl' w = Curl.new w.url = 'http://www.ruby-lang.