Index: twitter_pull.class.inc
===================================================================
--- twitter_pull.class.inc	(revision 18134)
+++ twitter_pull.class.inc	(working copy)
@@ -65,8 +65,21 @@
       $url = 'http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q='. urlencode($this->twitkey) .'&rpp='. $num;
     }
 
-    $ret = drupal_http_request($url);
-
+    $proxy = variable_get('twitter_pull_proxy', '');   
+    $curl = curl_init();
+    
+    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
+    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
+    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 60); 
+    if ($proxy) { 
+      curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy); 
+    }
+    
+    $ret = new stdClass();
+    $ret->data = curl_exec($curl);
+    $ret->code = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE); // todo: find where the http_code is actually returned
+    curl_close($curl);
+    
     if ($ret->code < 200 || $ret->code > 399) {
       $errmsg = json_decode($ret->data);
       $errmsg = t('The error message received was: @message.', array('@message' => $errmsg->error));