Bio::Root::HTTPget is an alternape LWP::UserAgent mechanism, but I'm not sure about the benchmarks. It looks pretty small, so it should be pretty quick.

Kanji already mentioned HTTP::GHTTP

However, my advice is to check your bottlekneck first. Are you sure you own bandwidth isn't limmiting you? If you have a 56k connection, and are downloading a 200kb file, then that's probably the real problem. On the other hand, it's possible it is the module, and I guess I'd use one of these two (I'd adapt Bio::Root::HTTPget, personally.)
Gyan Kapur
gyan.kapur@rhhllp.com