As osunderdog noted, chomp is the way to go, it your guess is correct. However, it might be a bit more useful to know rather than guess.

my $file = './tcard.conf';
open(INFO, $file);
my @lines = <INFO>;
close(INFO);

print("The first line is >>$lines[0]<<\n");

my $url = $lines[0];
[download]

By surrounding the input line with markers (the '>>' and '<<'), you will be able to see if there is a final \n causing you a problem. It may be that the first line of the file is blank, you know.

If you haven't gotten a copy yet, go buy an Alpaca (Learning Perl by Schwartz (aka merlyn) and Phoenix). They develop a file reading code as an introduction to Perl; the section is titled "The chomp Operator", in chapter two.