use LWP::UserAgent;
  $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
  #$URL = 'http://whatever/file.html';

  my $expected_length;
  my $bytes_received = 0;
  my $req = HTTP::Request->new( GET => $URL );
  my $res =
     $ua->simple_request($req,
               sub {
                   my($chunk, $res) = @_;
                   $bytes_received += length($chunk);
                   unless (defined $expected_length) {
                      $expected_length = $res->content_length || 0;
                   }
                   if ($expected_length) {
                        printf STDERR "%d%% - ",
                                  100 * $bytes_received / $expected_length;
                   }
                   print STDERR "$bytes_received bytes received\n";

               });
   print $res->status_line, "\n";