The http package also can do secure HTTP (HTTPS) with the help of the tls package, as Michael A. Cleverly's example from the http manual illustrates:
package require http
package require tls
http::register https 443 ::tls::socket
set token [http::geturl https://my.secure.site/]Also see Matt Newman's example [L1 ]. [Someone help fix up that URL?]
[But none of this stuff knows how to tunnel proxies, as of December 2001.] [But maybe TclCurl helps?]
Erik Leunissen, Pat Thoyts, and David Bleicher dive deeply into HTTP 1.0 vs. 1.1, persistent connections, certificates, ... in a revealing thread [L2 ] on comp.lang.tcl.