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).

Sun's Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) ... The JSSE library has an HttpsURLConnection class that is in the com.sun.net.ssl package, which extends the java.net.URLConnection class.