The list is not the problem. The problem is the other reference, from &quot;&lt;socket._fileobject object at 0xf7d42c34&gt;&quot;.<br><br>Also note that the workaround (u.fp.recv = None) removes the second reference.<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">On the other hand, it should also be noted that in close method, the socket is not explicitly closed and for a single urlopen, atleast 3 sockets are opened.<br>

</blockquote><div>This is fine (at least in CPython), because the socket is destroyed when the refcount reaches zero, thus calling the finalizer.<br><br></div></div>