mipapage - 8:46 am on Feb 28, 2008 (gmt 0)

Funnily enough, file_get_contents() was the one I seemed to get on best with in testing too, but my instinct told me CURL would be more efficient, where present.

My experience has been the opposite, in the context of presence:

file_get_contents() is the most simple and easy to use, when present (or better said, "when allowed"), however cURL is more reliable across hosts.