Function blocked by host

I have tested in the class works fine on my local development server, but when I deploy to my hosting server I get a message that file_get_contents is blocked for security purposes. got any idea of another php function to replace that with and make the class work?

Thanks!

Hello,
You can use fopen and fread instead.
Please replace the line $data=file_get_contents($url); with the following code:

$handle = fopen($url, "rb");
$data = stream_get_contents($handle);
fclose($handle);

Essentially the same warning:
Warning: fopen() [<a href='function.fopen'>function.fopen</a>]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /path_removed/lib/classes/rankchecker.php on line 38

other errors after this, but all due to this failure..