Merge branch 'pr/803' into dev

qa-include/qa-base.php

@@ -1874,9 +1874,11 @@ function qa_retrieve_url($url)
 		return '';
 	}
 
-	$contents = @file_get_contents($url);
+	$contents = '';
 
-	if (!strlen($contents) && function_exists('curl_exec')) { // try curl as a backup (if allow_url_fopen not set)
+	// Due to the design of the file_get_contents function, sometimes getting external content will be very slow.
+	// So we try curl first, if possible. https://stackoverflow.com/q/3629504
+	if (function_exists('curl_exec')) {
 		$curl = curl_init($url);
 		curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
 		curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
@@ -1884,6 +1886,10 @@ function qa_retrieve_url($url)
 		curl_close($curl);
 	}
 
+	if (!strlen($contents)) {
+		$contents = @file_get_contents($url);
+	}
+
 	return $contents;
 }