diff --git a/pywebfinger.py b/pywebfinger.py
index d960652..3340921 100644
--- a/pywebfinger.py
+++ b/pywebfinger.py
@@ -17,69 +17,80 @@ WEBFINGER_TYPES = (
     'http://webfinger.info/rel/service',    # deprecated on 09/17/2009
 )
 
-class WebFingerExpection(Exception):
+class WebFingerException(Exception):
     pass
 
 class WebFingerResponse(object):
-    
-    def __init__(self, xrd):
+
+    def __init__(self, xrd, insecure):
+        self.insecure = insecure
         self._xrd = xrd
-    
+
     def __getattr__(self, name):
         if name in RELS:
             return self._xrd.find_link(RELS[name], attr='href')
         return getattr(self._xrd, name)
 
 class WebFingerClient(object):
-    
-    def __init__(self, host, secure=False):
+
+    def __init__(self, host, timeout=None):
         self._host = host
-        self._secure = secure
         self._opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPRedirectHandler())
         self._opener.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'python-webfinger')]
-    
+
+        self._timeout = timeout
+
     def _hm_hosts(self, xrd):
         return [e.value for e in xrd.elements if e.name == 'hm:Host']
-    
+
     def xrd(self, url, raw=False):
-        conn = self._opener.open(url)
+        conn = self._opener.open(url, timeout=self._timeout)
         response = conn.read()
         conn.close()
         return response if raw else XRD.parse(response)
-    
-    def hostmeta(self):
-        protocol = "https" if self._secure else "http"
+
+    def hostmeta(self, protocol):
         hostmeta_url = "%s://%s/.well-known/host-meta" % (protocol, self._host)
         return self.xrd(hostmeta_url)
-    
+
     def finger(self, username):
-        
-        hm = self.hostmeta()
+        try:
+            hm = self.hostmeta('https')
+            insecure = False
+        except (urllib2.URLError, urllib2.HTTPError):
+            hm = self.hostmeta('http')
+            insecure = True
+
         hm_hosts = self._hm_hosts(hm)
-        
+
         if self._host not in hm_hosts:
-            raise WebFingerExpection("hostmeta host did not match account host")
-                
+            raise WebFingerException("hostmeta host did not match account host")
+
         template = hm.find_link(WEBFINGER_TYPES, attr='template')
+        if not template.startswith('https://'):
+            insecure = True
         xrd_url = template.replace('{uri}',
                     urllib.quote_plus('acct:%s@%s' % (username, self._host)))
-                    
-        return WebFingerResponse(self.xrd(xrd_url))
 
-def finger(identifier, secure=False):
+        data = self.xrd(xrd_url)
+        return WebFingerResponse(data, insecure)
+
+def finger(identifier, timeout=None):
     if identifier.startswith('acct:'):
         (acct, identifier) = identifier.split(':', 1)
     (username, host) = identifier.split('@')
-    client = WebFingerClient(host, secure)
+    client = WebFingerClient(host, timeout=timeout)
     return client.finger(username)
 
 # example main method
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     import sys
-    wf = finger(sys.argv[1], True)
+    wf = finger(sys.argv[1])
     print "Avatar: ", wf.avatar
     print "HCard:  ", wf.hcard
     print "OpenID: ", wf.open_id
     print "Profile:", wf.profile
     print "XFN:    ", wf.find_link('http://gmpg.org/xfn/11', attr='href')
+    if wf.insecure:
+        print "Warning: Data was retrieved over an insecure connection"