This probably won't go down well with some, but mod:;//LWP seems to be badly broken on Win32. The following code downloads the same file from CPAN using 3 different methods; LWP::Simple::get(), LWP::UserAgent::get(), and Win32::Internet::FetchURL():

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Time::HiRes qw[ time ];
use LWP;
use LWP::Simple;
use Win32::Internet;

$|++;

my $url = 'http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.funet.fi/pub/languag
+es/perl/CPAN/authors/id/J/JD/JDB/Win32-Internet-0.084.tar.gz';

my $start1 = time;
my $file1 = get( $url );
printf "\nLWP::Simple took %7.3f seconds\n", my $time1 = time() - $sta
+rt1;
print "Size: ", length $file1;
printf "Transfer rate: %5.2f bytes/sec\n", length( $file1 ) / $time1;


my $inet = new Win32::Internet;
my $start2 = time;
my $file2 = $inet->FetchURL( $url );
printf "\nWin32::I took %7.3f seconds\n", my $time2 = time() - $start2
+;
print "Size: ", length $file2;
printf "Transfer rate: %5.2f bytes/sec\n", length( $file2 ) / $time2;


my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $start3 = time;
my $resp = $ua->get( $url );
printf "\nLWP::UA took %7.3f seconds\n", my $time3 = time() - $start3;
+ ## Corrected [Mr Mischief]++
my $file3 = $resp->content;
print "Size: ", length $file3;
printf "Transfer rate: %5.2f bytes/sec\n", length( $file3 ) / $time3;
[download]

The upshot is that LWP::Simple::get() was twice as fast and LWP::UserAgent::get(). But the native API wrapper is 25 times faster than LWP::Simple & LWP::UserAgent!

I could not believe the difference using the native API made--it HAD to be an error! Didn't it?-- but I've run this a dozen times now. I tried altering the ordering of the downloads to check that there was no caching involved; I re-booted and killed every process except those required to allow the system to run. And the following figures are pretty average for the results I've seen:

Uodated: figures for corrected benchmark. Mr Mischief++

C:\test>Win32Itest.pl
LWP::Simple took  14.703 seconds
Size: 64230
Transfer rate: 4368.46 bytes/sec
Win32::I took   0.639 seconds
Size: 64230
Transfer rate: 100515.50 bytes/sec
LWP::UA took  14.796 seconds
Size: 64230
Transfer rate: 4340.89 bytes/sec
[download]

Can anyone out there confirm these figures? Someone with a decent speed internet connection?

So, I tried wget:

C:\test>wget http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.funet.fi/pub/langu
+ages/perl/CPAN/authors/id/J/JD/JDB/Win32-Internet-0.084.tar.gz
--02:17:39--  http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.funet.fi/pub/lang
+uages/perl/CPAN/authors/id/J/JD/JDB/Win32-Internet-0.084.tar.gz
           => `Win32-Internet-0.084.tar.gz'
Resolving www.mirrorservice.org... 212.219.56.138, 212.219.56.139, 212
+.219.56.153, ...
Connecting to www.mirrorservice.org|212.219.56.138|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 64,230 (63K) [application/x-gzip]

100%[==============...==============>] 64,230         4.51K/s    ETA 0
+0:00

02:17:54 (4.60 KB/s) - `Win32-Internet-0.084.tar.gz' saved [64230/6423
+0]
[download]

Conclusion: if you use win32, and regularly download large files, seriously consider using the Win32::Internet module, because unless someone can explain my mistake, it really is remarkably quick.