title: python requests is slow
body: <p>I am developing a download manager. Using the requests module in python to check for a valid link (and hopefully broken links).
  My code for checking link below:</p>
  <pre><code>url = 'http://pyscripter.googlecode.com/files/PyScripter-v2.5.3-Setup.exe'
  r = requests.get(url, allow_redirects=False) # this line takes 40 seconds
  if r.status_code==200:
      print(&quot;link valid&quot;)
  else:
      print(&quot;link invalid&quot;)
  </code></pre>
  <p>Now, the issue is this takes approximately 40 seconds to perform this check, which is huge.
  My question is how can I speed this up maybe using urllib2 or something??</p>
  <p>Note: Also if I replace <code>url</code> with the actual URL which is 'http://pyscripter.googlecode.com/files/PyScripter-v2.5.3-Setup.exe', this takes one second so it appears to be an issue with requests.</p>