There are some changes to defaults in httpclient 2.5.0+ to mitigate susceptibility to some recent(ish) SSL atack vectors.

See: https://github.com/nahi/httpclient/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

Relevant changes in 2.5.0:
"""
    Disabled SSLv3 in favor of POODLE Attack prevention.
    Enabled 1/n-1 fragment in favor of BEAST Attack prevention.
    No TLS compression in favor of CRIME Attack prevention.
"""