urllib

What it is good for?

Retrieving webpages.

urllib sends HTTP requests to web pages and allows you to read their content similar to files. Parameters can be passed as part of the URL like in a browser if the website is using the HTTP GET protocol.
(For forms using(HTTP POST) you need something different (Python example with ~5 lines)

Installed with Python by default

yes

Example

Read the homepage of the author.

  1. from urllib import request, parse
  2. url = 'http://www.academis.eu'
  3. req = request.urlopen(url)
  4. page = req.read()
  5. print(len(page))

Where to learn more?

https://docs.python.org/3/library/zipfile.html