For a script working with Python 2 (tested versions 2.7.3 and 2.6.8) and Python 3 (3.2.3 and 3.3.2+) try:

#! /usr/bin/env python try: # For Python 3.0 and later from urllib.request import urlopen except ImportError: # Fall back to Python 2's urllib2 from urllib2 import urlopen html = urlopen("http://www.google.com/") print(html.read()) 

The above didn't work for me in 3.3. Try this instead (YMMV, etc)

import urllib.request url = "http://www.google.com/" request = urllib.request.Request(url) response = urllib.request.urlopen(request) print (response.read().decode('utf-8')) 

Some tab completions to show the contents of the packages in Python 2 vs Python 3.

In Python 2:

In [1]: import urllib In [2]: urllib. urllib.ContentTooShortError urllib.ftpwrapper urllib.socket urllib.test1 urllib.FancyURLopener urllib.getproxies urllib.splitattr urllib.thishost urllib.MAXFTPCACHE urllib.getproxies_environment urllib.splithost urllib.time urllib.URLopener urllib.i urllib.splitnport urllib.toBytes urllib.addbase urllib.localhost urllib.splitpasswd urllib.unquote urllib.addclosehook urllib.noheaders urllib.splitport urllib.unquote_plus urllib.addinfo urllib.os urllib.splitquery urllib.unwrap urllib.addinfourl urllib.pathname2url urllib.splittag urllib.url2pathname urllib.always_safe urllib.proxy_bypass urllib.splittype urllib.urlcleanup urllib.base64 urllib.proxy_bypass_environment urllib.splituser urllib.urlencode urllib.basejoin urllib.quote urllib.splitvalue urllib.urlopen urllib.c urllib.quote_plus urllib.ssl urllib.urlretrieve urllib.ftpcache urllib.re urllib.string urllib.ftperrors urllib.reporthook urllib.sys 

In Python 3:

In [2]: import urllib. urllib.error urllib.parse urllib.request urllib.response urllib.robotparser In [2]: import urllib.error. urllib.error.ContentTooShortError urllib.error.HTTPError urllib.error.URLError In [2]: import urllib.parse. urllib.parse.parse_qs urllib.parse.quote_plus urllib.parse.urldefrag urllib.parse.urlsplit urllib.parse.parse_qsl urllib.parse.unquote urllib.parse.urlencode urllib.parse.urlunparse urllib.parse.quote urllib.parse.unquote_plus urllib.parse.urljoin urllib.parse.urlunsplit urllib.parse.quote_from_bytes urllib.parse.unquote_to_bytes urllib.parse.urlparse In [2]: import urllib.request. urllib.request.AbstractBasicAuthHandler urllib.request.HTTPSHandler urllib.request.AbstractDigestAuthHandler urllib.request.OpenerDirector urllib.request.BaseHandler urllib.request.ProxyBasicAuthHandler urllib.request.CacheFTPHandler urllib.request.ProxyDigestAuthHandler urllib.request.DataHandler urllib.request.ProxyHandler urllib.request.FTPHandler urllib.request.Request urllib.request.FancyURLopener urllib.request.URLopener urllib.request.FileHandler urllib.request.UnknownHandler urllib.request.HTTPBasicAuthHandler urllib.request.build_opener urllib.request.HTTPCookieProcessor urllib.request.getproxies urllib.request.HTTPDefaultErrorHandler urllib.request.install_opener urllib.request.HTTPDigestAuthHandler urllib.request.pathname2url urllib.request.HTTPErrorProcessor urllib.request.url2pathname urllib.request.HTTPHandler urllib.request.urlcleanup urllib.request.HTTPPasswordMgr urllib.request.urlopen urllib.request.HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm urllib.request.urlretrieve urllib.request.HTTPRedirectHandler In [2]: import urllib.response. urllib.response.addbase urllib.response.addclosehook urllib.response.addinfo urllib.response.addinfourl 

Python 3:

import urllib.request wp = urllib.request.urlopen("http://google.com") pw = wp.read() print(pw) 

Python 2:

import urllib import sys wp = urllib.urlopen("http://google.com") for line in wp: sys.stdout.write(line) 

While I have tested both the Codes in respective versions.

Instead of using:

import urllib2 

use code below in python3

import urllib.request as urllib2 

NOTE: urllib2 is no longer available in Python 3

You can try following code.

import urllib.request res = urllib.request.urlopen('url') output = res.read() print(output) 

You can get more idea about urllib.request from this link.

Using :urllib3

import urllib3 http = urllib3.PoolManager() r = http.request('GET', 'url') print(r.status) print( r.headers) print(r.data) 

Also if you want more details about urllib3. follow this link.

Simplest of all solutions:

In Python 3.x:

import urllib.request url = "https://api.github.com/users?since=100" request = urllib.request.Request(url) response = urllib.request.urlopen(request) data_content = response.read() print(data_content) 

In python 3, to get text output:

import io import urllib.request response = urllib.request.urlopen("http://google.com") text = io.TextIOWrapper(response) 

That worked for me in python3:

import urllib.request htmlfile = urllib.request.urlopen("http://google.com") htmltext = htmlfile.read() print(htmltext)