This is a simple method for fetching web content. It's my fork of http://www.xyzws.com/Javafaq/how-to-use-httpurlconnection-post-data-to-web-server/139 which is for POST requests only.

getRequest.java

	/** Fetches a website from the given URL.
	 * 
	 * @param targetURL
	 * @return the website as a string
	 * @throws IOException
	 */
	public static String executeGet(String targetURL) throws IOException {
		URL url;
		HttpURLConnection connection = null;

		// Create connection
		url = new URL(targetURL);
		connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
		connection.setRequestMethod("GET");

		// configure socket settings
		connection.setUseCaches(false);
		connection.setDoInput(true);
		connection.setReadTimeout(15000); // wait 15 seconds
		
		//System.out.println("connection prepared. now sending");

		// Send & Get Response
		InputStream is = connection.getInputStream();
		BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
		String line;
		StringBuffer response = new StringBuffer();
		while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
			response.append(line);
			response.append('\r');
		}

		connection.disconnect();
		rd.close();
		return response.toString();
	}