diff --git a/lib/feed_handler.rb b/lib/feed_handler.rb
index aa17e1c..d6ac291 100644
--- a/lib/feed_handler.rb
+++ b/lib/feed_handler.rb
@@ -15,7 +15,12 @@ class FeedHandler
   def fetch(address)
     begin
       content = ""
-      open(address) do |s| content = s.read end
+      block = lambda { |s| content = s.read }
+      content = if is_web_address?(address)
+        open( address, "User-Agent" => "Noosfero/#{Noosfero::VERSION}", &block )
+      else
+        open_uri_original_open(address, &block)
+      end
       return content
     rescue Exception => ex
       raise FeedHandler::FetchError, ex.to_s
@@ -39,4 +44,14 @@ class FeedHandler
   class ParseError < Exception; end
   class FetchError < Exception; end
 
+  protected
+
+  # extracted from the open implementation in the open-uri library
+  def is_web_address?(address)
+    address.respond_to?(:open) ||
+      address.respond_to?(:to_str) &&
+      (%r{\A[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9+\-\.]*://} =~ address) &&
+      URI.parse(address).respond_to?(:open)
+  end
+
 end
diff --git a/test/unit/feed_handler_test.rb b/test/unit/feed_handler_test.rb
index ea1b3e6..62ec222 100644
--- a/test/unit/feed_handler_test.rb
+++ b/test/unit/feed_handler_test.rb
@@ -73,4 +73,10 @@ class FeedHandlerTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     handler.process(container)
   end
 
+  should 'identifies itself as noosfero user agent' do
+    handler = FeedHandler.new
+    handler.expects(:open).with('http://site.org/feed.xml', {"User-Agent" => "Noosfero/#{Noosfero::VERSION}"}, anything).returns('bli content')
+    assert_equal 'bli content', handler.fetch('http://site.org/feed.xml')
+  end
+
 end
--
libgit2 0.21.2