I've googled around, and I can't find any info on why java.net.URLConnection is abysmally slow. I have observed the problem on os x (with java 1.4.2), linux, and pocket pc (running ibm's j9).

Pass SSL socket to HTTPS URL stream handler The JSSE library has an HttpsURLConnection class that is in the com.sun.net.ssl package, which extends the java.net.URLConnection class.