Java 7 URL connection

CustomHttpUrlConnection.java

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;

public class CustomHttpUrlConnection implements Serializable, AutoCloseable {
  private final URLConnection conn;

  public CustomHttpUrlConnection(String url) throws IOException {
    conn = new URL(url).openConnection();
    conn.connect();
  }

  public InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {
    return conn.getInputStream();
  }

  @Override
  public void close() throws IOException {
    getInputStream().close();
  }
}

SampleHttpConnection.java

final StringBuffer json = new StringBuffer();
try (CustomHttpUrlConnection conn = new CustomHttpUrlConnection(url); InputStream in = conn.getInputStream()) {
  int b = 0;
  while (b != -1) {
    b = in.read();
    json.append((char)b);
  }
} catch (Exception ex) {
  log.error("Could not retrieve information from remote server.", ex);
}