Some web sites (like IMDb) prevent external scripts from parsing their contents by denying request without a user-agent string. You open a socket connection and send the headers, or you can just use be_fopen and be_file, which wrap the fsockopen calls and return a file handle usable with any PHP function. Features: may also be used to circumvent allow_url_fopen; completely transparent wrapper for fsockopen; PHP-like interfaces: BE::fopen (corresponds to fopen) and BE::file (file()); usable with all PHP file handling methods (fgets etc.); can send GET or POST requests; custom header lines can be sent; POST data can be sent; HTTP authentication; custom destination port.