How about just using IO::Socket?

#!/usr/bin/perl
$|++;
use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Socket;

my $host = '0.0.0.0';
my $port = 80;
my $socket = IO::Socket::INET->new(
  PeerHost => $host,
  PeerPort => $port,
  Timeout => 5,
) or die "Failed to connect to $host on $port: $!";
$socket->autoflush(1);
print "Host reached\n-----------------\n" ;
my $lines = 'GET /index.html';
$socket->send($lines . "\n");
while( defined( my $line = $socket->getline() ) ){
  print $line;
}
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