diff --git a/include/Probe.php b/include/Probe.php
index d9778c2ee7..c31b98a9aa 100644
--- a/include/Probe.php
+++ b/include/Probe.php
@@ -75,6 +75,7 @@ class Probe {
 			return false;
 
 		$xrd_data = array();
+
 		foreach ($links["xrd"]["link"] AS $value => $link) {
 			if (isset($link["@attributes"]))
 				$attributes = $link["@attributes"];
@@ -95,6 +96,109 @@ class Probe {
 		return $xrd_data;
 	}
 
+	/**
+	 * @brief Perform Webfinger lookup and return DFRN data
+	 *
+	 * Given an email style address, perform webfinger lookup and
+	 * return the resulting DFRN profile URL, or if no DFRN profile URL
+	 * is located, returns an OStatus subscription template (prefixed
+	 * with the string 'stat:' to identify it as on OStatus template).
+	 * If this isn't an email style address just return $webbie.
+	 * Return an empty string if email-style addresses but webfinger fails,
+	 * or if the resultant personal XRD doesn't contain a supported
+	 * subscription/friend-request attribute.
+	 *
+	 * amended 7/9/2011 to return an hcard which could save potentially loading
+	 * a lengthy content page to scrape dfrn attributes
+	 *
+	 * @param string $webbie Address that should be probed
+	 * @param string $hcard Link to the hcard - is returned by reference
+	 *
+	 * @return string profile link
+	 */
+
+	public static function webfinger_dfrn($webbie, &$hcard) {
+		if (!strstr($webbie, '@'))
+			return $webbie;
+
+		$profile_link = '';
+
+		$links = self::webfinger($webbie);
+		logger('webfinger_dfrn: '.$webbie.':'.print_r($links,true), LOGGER_DATA);
+		if (count($links)) {
+			foreach ($links as $link) {
+				if ($link['@attributes']['rel'] === NAMESPACE_DFRN)
+					$profile_link = $link['@attributes']['href'];
+				if ($link['@attributes']['rel'] === NAMESPACE_OSTATUSSUB)
+					$profile_link = 'stat:'.$link['@attributes']['template'];
+				if ($link['@attributes']['rel'] === 'http://microformats.org/profile/hcard')
+					$hcard = $link['@attributes']['href'];
+			}
+		}
+		return $profile_link;
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * @brief Check an URI for LRDD data
+	 *
+	 * this is a replacement for the "lrdd" function in include/network.php.
+	 * It isn't used in this class and has some redundancies in the code.
+	 * When time comes we can check the existing calls for "lrdd" if we can rework them.
+	 *
+	 * @param string $uri Address that should be probed
+	 *
+	 * @return array uri data
+	 */
+	public static function lrdd($uri) {
+
+		$lrdd = self::xrd($uri);
+
+		if (!$lrdd) {
+			$parts = @parse_url($uri);
+			if (!$parts)
+				return array();
+
+			$host = $parts["host"];
+
+			$path_parts = explode("/", trim($parts["path"], "/"));
+
+			do {
+				$lrdd = self::xrd($host);
+				$host .= "/".array_shift($path_parts);
+			} while (!$lrdd AND (sizeof($path_parts) > 0));
+		}
+
+		if (!$lrdd)
+			return array();
+
+		foreach ($lrdd AS $key => $link) {
+			if ($webfinger)
+				continue;
+
+			if (!in_array($key, array("lrdd", "lrdd-xml", "lrdd-json")))
+				continue;
+
+			$path = str_replace('{uri}', urlencode($uri), $link);
+			$webfinger = self::webfinger($path);
+		}
+
+		if (!is_array($webfinger["links"]))
+			return false;
+
+		$data = array();
+
+		foreach ($webfinger["links"] AS $link)
+			$data[] = array("@attributes" => $link);
+
+		if (is_array($webfinger["aliases"]))
+			foreach ($webfinger["aliases"] AS $alias)
+				$data[] = array("@attributes" =>
+							array("rel" => "alias",
+								"href" => $alias));
+
+		return $data;
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * @brief Fetch information about a given uri
 	 *
diff --git a/include/network.php b/include/network.php
index 64b6d07c6c..f20445d27e 100644
--- a/include/network.php
+++ b/include/network.php
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
  */
 
 require_once("include/xml.php");
-
+require_once('include/Probe.php');
 
 /**
  * @brief Curl wrapper
@@ -371,324 +371,6 @@ function http_status_exit($val, $description = array()) {
 
 }
 
-// Given an email style address, perform webfinger lookup and
-// return the resulting DFRN profile URL, or if no DFRN profile URL
-// is located, returns an OStatus subscription template (prefixed
-// with the string 'stat:' to identify it as on OStatus template).
-// If this isn't an email style address just return $webbie.
-// Return an empty string if email-style addresses but webfinger fails,
-// or if the resultant personal XRD doesn't contain a supported
-// subscription/friend-request attribute.
-
-// amended 7/9/2011 to return an hcard which could save potentially loading
-// a lengthy content page to scrape dfrn attributes
-
-function webfinger_dfrn($webbie,&$hcard) {
-	if(! strstr($webbie,'@')) {
-		return $webbie;
-	}
-	$profile_link = '';
-
-	$links = webfinger($webbie);
-	logger('webfinger_dfrn: ' . $webbie . ':' . print_r($links,true), LOGGER_DATA);
-	if(count($links)) {
-		foreach($links as $link) {
-			if($link['@attributes']['rel'] === NAMESPACE_DFRN)
-				$profile_link = $link['@attributes']['href'];
-			if($link['@attributes']['rel'] === NAMESPACE_OSTATUSSUB)
-				$profile_link = 'stat:' . $link['@attributes']['template'];
-			if($link['@attributes']['rel'] === 'http://microformats.org/profile/hcard')
-				$hcard = $link['@attributes']['href'];
-		}
-	}
-	return $profile_link;
-}
-
-/**
- * @brief Perform webfinger lookup on an email style address
- * 
- * @param string $webbi An email style address
- * @param boolean $debug
- * 
- * @return array of link attributes from the personal XRD file
- *    empty array on error/failure
- */
-function webfinger($webbie, $debug = false) {
-	$host = '';
-	if(strstr($webbie,'@')) {
-		$host = substr($webbie,strpos($webbie,'@') + 1);
-	}
-	if(strlen($host)) {
-		$tpl = fetch_lrdd_template($host);
-		logger('webfinger: lrdd template: ' . $tpl);
-		if(strlen($tpl)) {
-			$pxrd = str_replace('{uri}', urlencode('acct:' . $webbie), $tpl);
-			logger('webfinger: pxrd: ' . $pxrd);
-			$links = fetch_xrd_links($pxrd);
-			if(! count($links)) {
-				// try with double slashes
-				$pxrd = str_replace('{uri}', urlencode('acct://' . $webbie), $tpl);
-				logger('webfinger: pxrd: ' . $pxrd);
-				$links = fetch_xrd_links($pxrd);
-			}
-			return $links;
-		}
-	}
-	return array();
-}
-
-function lrdd($uri, $debug = false) {
-
-	$a = get_app();
-
-	// default priority is host priority, host-meta first
-
-	$priority = 'host';
-
-	// All we have is an email address. Resource-priority is irrelevant
-	// because our URI isn't directly resolvable.
-
-	if(strstr($uri,'@')) {
-		return(webfinger($uri));
-	}
-
-	// get the host meta file
-
-	$host = @parse_url($uri);
-
-	if($host) {
-		$url  = ((x($host,'scheme')) ? $host['scheme'] : 'http') . '://';
-		$url .= $host['host'] . '/.well-known/host-meta' ;
-	}
-	else
-		return array();
-
-	logger('lrdd: constructed url: ' . $url);
-
-	$xml = fetch_url($url);
-
-	$headers = $a->get_curl_headers();
-
-	if (! $xml)
-		return array();
-
-	logger('lrdd: host_meta: ' . $xml, LOGGER_DATA);
-
-	if(! stristr($xml,'<xrd'))
-		return array();
-
-	$h = parse_xml_string($xml);
-	if(! $h)
-		return array();
-
-	$arr = xml::element_to_array($h);
-
-	if(isset($arr['xrd']['property'])) {
-		$property = $arr['crd']['property'];
-		if(! isset($property[0]))
-			$properties = array($property);
-		else
-			$properties = $property;
-		foreach($properties as $prop)
-			if((string) $prop['@attributes'] === 'http://lrdd.net/priority/resource')
-				$priority = 'resource';
-	}
-
-	// save the links in case we need them
-
-	$links = array();
-
-	if(isset($arr['xrd']['link'])) {
-		$link = $arr['xrd']['link'];
-		if(! isset($link[0]))
-			$links = array($link);
-		else
-			$links = $link;
-	}
-
-	// do we have a template or href?
-
-	if(count($links)) {
-		foreach($links as $link) {
-			if($link['@attributes']['rel'] && attribute_contains($link['@attributes']['rel'],'lrdd')) {
-				if(x($link['@attributes'],'template'))
-					$tpl = $link['@attributes']['template'];
-				elseif(x($link['@attributes'],'href'))
-					$href = $link['@attributes']['href'];
-			}
-		}
-	}
-
-	if((! isset($tpl)) || (! strpos($tpl,'{uri}')))
-		$tpl = '';
-
-	if($priority === 'host') {
-		if(strlen($tpl))
-			$pxrd = str_replace('{uri}', urlencode($uri), $tpl);
-		elseif(isset($href))
-			$pxrd = $href;
-		if(isset($pxrd)) {
-			logger('lrdd: (host priority) pxrd: ' . $pxrd);
-			$links = fetch_xrd_links($pxrd);
-			return $links;
-		}
-
-		$lines = explode("\n",$headers);
-		if(count($lines)) {
-			foreach($lines as $line) {
-				if((stristr($line,'link:')) && preg_match('/<([^>].*)>.*rel\=[\'\"]lrdd[\'\"]/',$line,$matches)) {
-					return(fetch_xrd_links($matches[1]));
-					break;
-				}
-			}
-		}
-	}
-
-
-	// priority 'resource'
-
-
-	$html = fetch_url($uri);
-	$headers = $a->get_curl_headers();
-	logger('lrdd: headers=' . $headers, LOGGER_DEBUG);
-
-	// don't try and parse raw xml as html
-	if(! strstr($html,'<?xml')) {
-		require_once('library/HTML5/Parser.php');
-
-		try {
-			$dom = HTML5_Parser::parse($html);
-		} catch (DOMException $e) {
-			logger('lrdd: parse error: ' . $e);
-		}
-
-		if(isset($dom) && $dom) {
-			$items = $dom->getElementsByTagName('link');
-			foreach($items as $item) {
-				$x = $item->getAttribute('rel');
-				if($x == "lrdd") {
-					$pagelink = $item->getAttribute('href');
-					break;
-				}
-			}
-		}
-	}
-
-	if(isset($pagelink))
-		return(fetch_xrd_links($pagelink));
-
-	// next look in HTTP headers
-
-	$lines = explode("\n",$headers);
-	if(count($lines)) {
-		foreach($lines as $line) {
-			/// @TODO Alter the following regex to support multiple relations (space separated)
-			if((stristr($line,'link:')) && preg_match('/<([^>].*)>.*rel\=[\'\"]lrdd[\'\"]/',$line,$matches)) {
-				$pagelink = $matches[1];
-				break;
-			}
-			// don't try and run feeds through the html5 parser
-			if(stristr($line,'content-type:') && ((stristr($line,'application/atom+xml')) || (stristr($line,'application/rss+xml'))))
-				return array();
-			if(stristr($html,'<rss') || stristr($html,'<feed'))
-				return array();
-		}
-	}
-
-	if(isset($pagelink))
-		return(fetch_xrd_links($pagelink));
-
-	// If we haven't found any links, return the host xrd links (which we have already fetched)
-
-	if(isset($links))
-		return $links;
-
-	return array();
-
-}
-
-// Given a host name, locate the LRDD template from that
-// host. Returns the LRDD template or an empty string on
-// error/failure.
-
-function fetch_lrdd_template($host) {
-	$tpl = '';
-
-	$url1 = 'https://' . $host . '/.well-known/host-meta' ;
-	$url2 = 'http://' . $host . '/.well-known/host-meta' ;
-	$links = fetch_xrd_links($url1);
-	logger('fetch_lrdd_template from: ' . $url1);
-	logger('template (https): ' . print_r($links,true));
-	if(! count($links)) {
-		logger('fetch_lrdd_template from: ' . $url2);
-		$links = fetch_xrd_links($url2);
-		logger('template (http): ' . print_r($links,true));
-	}
-	if(count($links)) {
-		foreach($links as $link)
-			if($link['@attributes']['rel'] && $link['@attributes']['rel'] === 'lrdd' && (!$link['@attributes']['type'] || $link['@attributes']['type'] === 'application/xrd+xml'))
-				$tpl = $link['@attributes']['template'];
-	}
-	if(! strpos($tpl,'{uri}'))
-		$tpl = '';
-	return $tpl;
-}
-
-/**
- * @brief Given a URL, retrieve the page as an XRD document.
- * 
- * @param string $url An url
- * @return array of links
- *    return empty array on error/failure
- */
-function fetch_xrd_links($url) {
-
-	$xrd_timeout = intval(get_config('system','xrd_timeout'));
-	$redirects = 0;
-	$xml = fetch_url($url,false,$redirects,(($xrd_timeout) ? $xrd_timeout : 20), "application/xrd+xml");
-
-	logger('fetch_xrd_links: ' . $xml, LOGGER_DATA);
-
-	if ((! $xml) || (! stristr($xml,'<xrd')))
-		return array();
-
-	// fix diaspora's bad xml
-	$xml = str_replace(array('href=&quot;','&quot;/>'),array('href="','"/>'),$xml);
-
-	$h = parse_xml_string($xml);
-	if(! $h)
-		return array();
-
-	$arr = xml::element_to_array($h);
-
-	$links = array();
-
-	if(isset($arr['xrd']['link'])) {
-		$link = $arr['xrd']['link'];
-		if(! isset($link[0]))
-			$links = array($link);
-		else
-			$links = $link;
-	}
-	if(isset($arr['xrd']['alias'])) {
-		$alias = $arr['xrd']['alias'];
-		if(! isset($alias[0]))
-			$aliases = array($alias);
-		else
-			$aliases = $alias;
-		if(is_array($aliases) && count($aliases)) {
-			foreach($aliases as $alias) {
-				$links[]['@attributes'] = array('rel' => 'alias' , 'href' => $alias);
-			}
-		}
-	}
-
-	logger('fetch_xrd_links: ' . print_r($links,true), LOGGER_DATA);
-
-	return $links;
-
-}
-
 /**
  * @brief Check URL to se if ts's real
  * 
diff --git a/include/salmon.php b/include/salmon.php
index 988c542e2d..8341b902a7 100644
--- a/include/salmon.php
+++ b/include/salmon.php
@@ -1,15 +1,14 @@
 <?php
 
 require_once('include/crypto.php');
-
-
+require_once('include/Probe.php');
 
 function get_salmon_key($uri,$keyhash) {
 	$ret = array();
 
 	logger('Fetching salmon key for '.$uri);
 
-	$arr = lrdd($uri);
+	$arr = Probe::lrdd($uri);
 
 	if(is_array($arr)) {
 		foreach($arr as $a) {
diff --git a/mod/dfrn_confirm.php b/mod/dfrn_confirm.php
index 9c70ba21ab..25694a67f3 100644
--- a/mod/dfrn_confirm.php
+++ b/mod/dfrn_confirm.php
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 
 require_once('include/enotify.php');
 require_once('include/group.php');
+require_once('include/Probe.php');
 
 function dfrn_confirm_post(&$a,$handsfree = null) {
 
@@ -356,7 +357,7 @@ function dfrn_confirm_post(&$a,$handsfree = null) {
 			$poll   = (($contact['poll']) ? $contact['poll'] : '');
 
 			if((! $contact['notify']) || (! $contact['poll'])) {
-				$arr = lrdd($contact['url']);
+				$arr = Probe::lrdd($contact['url']);
 				if(count($arr)) {
 					foreach($arr as $link) {
 						if($link['@attributes']['rel'] === 'salmon')
diff --git a/mod/dfrn_request.php b/mod/dfrn_request.php
index 20c47bebf0..7fe2527f3d 100644
--- a/mod/dfrn_request.php
+++ b/mod/dfrn_request.php
@@ -448,7 +448,7 @@ function dfrn_request_post(&$a) {
 			$network = $data["network"];
 
 			// Canonicalise email-style profile locator
-			$url = webfinger_dfrn($url,$hcard);
+			$url = Probe::webfinger_dfrn($url,$hcard);
 
 			if (substr($url,0,5) === 'stat:') {
 
diff --git a/mod/photos.php b/mod/photos.php
index 4761b627d8..4ac4e1a0ee 100644
--- a/mod/photos.php
+++ b/mod/photos.php
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ require_once('include/security.php');
 require_once('include/redir.php');
 require_once('include/tags.php');
 require_once('include/threads.php');
+require_once('include/Probe.php');
 
 function photos_init(&$a) {
 
@@ -552,7 +553,7 @@ function photos_post(&$a) {
 						$name = substr($tag,1);
 						if((strpos($name,'@')) || (strpos($name,'http://'))) {
 							$newname = $name;
-							$links = @lrdd($name);
+							$links = @Probe::lrdd($name);
 							if(count($links)) {
 								foreach($links as $link) {
 									if($link['@attributes']['rel'] === 'http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page')
diff --git a/mod/profiles.php b/mod/profiles.php
index 9cd1ed8a02..c3bd068b0b 100644
--- a/mod/profiles.php
+++ b/mod/profiles.php
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 <?php
 require_once("include/Contact.php");
+require_once('include/Probe.php');
 
 function profiles_init(&$a) {
 
@@ -251,7 +252,7 @@ function profiles_post(&$a) {
 				$lookup = str_replace('_',' ', $lookup);
 				if(strpos($lookup,'@') || (strpos($lookup,'http://'))) {
 					$newname = $lookup;
-					$links = @lrdd($lookup);
+					$links = @Probe::lrdd($lookup);
 					if(count($links)) {
 						foreach($links as $link) {
 							if($link['@attributes']['rel'] === 'http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page') {
diff --git a/mod/webfinger.php b/mod/webfinger.php
index 74bd2c9543..e1e5b367b9 100644
--- a/mod/webfinger.php
+++ b/mod/webfinger.php
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 <?php
-
-
+require_once("include/Probe.php");
 
 function webfinger_content(&$a) {
 
@@ -8,16 +7,13 @@ function webfinger_content(&$a) {
 
 	$o .= '<form action="webfinger" method="get">';
 	$o .= 'Lookup address: <input type="text" style="width: 250px;" name="addr" value="' . $_GET['addr'] .'" />';
-	$o .= '<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /></form>'; 
+	$o .= '<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /></form>';
 
 	$o .= '<br /><br />';
 
 	if(x($_GET,'addr')) {
 		$addr = trim($_GET['addr']);
-		if(strpos($addr,'@' !== false))
-			$res = webfinger($addr);
-		else
-			$res = lrdd($addr);
+		$res = Probe::lrdd($addr);
 		$o .= '<pre>';
 		$o .= str_replace("\n",'<br />',print_r($res,true));
 		$o .= '</pre>';