use LWP::UserAgent;

sub get_url( $ )
{
    my ( $url ) = @_;

    my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
#    $ua->proxy('http','http://proxy.company.com:8080/');
    $ua->timeout( 10 );

    my $resp = $ua->get($url);
    if ( $resp->is_success ) {
        return( $resp->content );
    }
    else
    {
        die( "LWP error: " . $resp->status_line . "\n" );
    }
}

print( get_url( 'http://www.perl.com/' ) );