Then explain why
<?php
echo ini_get( 'allow_url_fopen' ) ;
?>
displays '1' (on Chopin, but I suspect it is the same on all the free servers).
Also
<?php
$handle = fopen( "http://www.cnn.com" , "r" ) ;
while( $out = fread ( $handle , 1028 )){
echo $out ;
}
fclose( $handle )
?>...