httpclient gives something like the functionality of libwww-perl (LWP) in Ruby. httpclient formerly known as http-access2.

Features:

    * methods like GET/HEAD/POST/* via HTTP/1.1.
    * HTTPS(SSL), Cookies, proxy, authentication(Digest, NTLM, Basic), etc.
    * asynchronous HTTP request, streaming HTTP request.
    * by contrast with net/http in standard distribution;
          o Cookies support
          o MT-safe
          o streaming POST (POST with File/IO)
          o Digest auth
          o Negotiate/NTLM auth for WWW-Authenticate (requires net/htlm module)
          o NTLM auth for Proxy-Authenticate (requires win32/sspi module)
          o extensible with filter interface
          o you dont have to care HTTP/1.1 persistent connection (httpclient cares instead of you)
    * Not supported now
          o Cache
          o Rather advanced HTTP/1.1 usage such as Range, deflate, etc. (of course you can set it in header by yourself)

For more detail, see API document at dev.ctor.org/doc/httpclient/ 

WWW:    http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/httpclient/