httplib slow read

[John Hunter]

I am using httplib to make GET requests.  I save the results in a file
with 

    of = open(fname, 'w')
    f = h.getfile()
    data = f.read()
    print 'Writing %s' % fname
    of.write( data )

where h is the httplib object.

The problem is that the read command is slow; much slower than if I
make the same request via my browser.

Is there a faster way to transfer the data into a file?

Thanks,
John Hunter