diff --git a/docs/topics/commands.rst b/docs/topics/commands.rst
index 32669104c..6636c30cb 100644
--- a/docs/topics/commands.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/commands.rst
@@ -322,6 +322,14 @@ So this command can be used to "see" how your spider would fetch a certain page.
 If used outside a project, no particular per-spider behaviour would be applied
 and it will just use the default Scrapy downloader settings.
 
+Supported options:
+
+* ``--spider=SPIDER``: bypass spider autodetection and force use of specific spider
+
+* ``--headers``: print the response's HTTP headers instead of the response's body
+
+* ``--no-redirect``: do not follow HTTP 3xx redirects (default is to follow them)
+
 Usage examples::
 
     $ scrapy fetch --nolog http://www.example.com/some/page.html
@@ -368,11 +376,34 @@ given. Also supports UNIX-style local file paths, either relative with
 ``./`` or ``../`` prefixes or absolute file paths.
 See :ref:`topics-shell` for more info.
 
+Supported options:
+
+* ``--spider=SPIDER``: bypass spider autodetection and force use of specific spider
+
+* ``-c code``: evaluate the code in the shell, print the result and exit
+
+* ``--no-redirect``: do not follow HTTP 3xx redirects (default is to follow them);
+  this only affects the URL you may pass as argument on the command line;
+  once you are inside the shell, ``fetch(url)`` will still follow HTTP redirects by default.
+
 Usage example::
 
     $ scrapy shell http://www.example.com/some/page.html
     [ ... scrapy shell starts ... ]
 
+    $ scrapy shell --nolog http://www.example.com/ -c '(response.status, response.url)'
+    (200, 'http://www.example.com/')
+
+    # shell follows HTTP redirects by default
+    $ scrapy shell --nolog http://httpbin.org/redirect-to?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F -c '(response.status, response.url)'
+    (200, 'http://example.com/')
+
+    # you can disable this with --no-redirect
+    # (only for the URL passed as command line argument)
+    $ scrapy shell --no-redirect --nolog http://httpbin.org/redirect-to?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F -c '(response.status, response.url)'
+    (302, 'http://httpbin.org/redirect-to?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F')
+
+
 .. command:: parse
 
 parse
diff --git a/docs/topics/shell.rst b/docs/topics/shell.rst
index da91108b2..ef6aeeed3 100644
--- a/docs/topics/shell.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/shell.rst
@@ -97,8 +97,12 @@ Available Shortcuts
 
  * ``shelp()`` - print a help with the list of available objects and shortcuts
 
- * ``fetch(request_or_url)`` - fetch a new response from the given request or
-   URL and update all related objects accordingly.
+ * ``fetch(url[, redirect=True])`` - fetch a new response from the given
+   URL and update all related objects accordingly. You can optionaly ask for
+   HTTP 3xx redirections to not be followed by passing ``redirect=False``
+
+ * ``fetch(request)`` - fetch a new response from the given request and
+   update all related objects accordingly.
 
  * ``view(response)`` - open the given response in your local web browser, for
    inspection. This will add a `\<base\> tag`_ to the response body in order
@@ -157,36 +161,28 @@ list of available objects and useful shortcuts (you'll notice that these lines
 all start with the ``[s]`` prefix)::
 
     [s] Available Scrapy objects:
-    [s]   crawler    <scrapy.crawler.Crawler object at 0x1e16b50>
+    [s]   scrapy     scrapy module (contains scrapy.Request, scrapy.Selector, etc)
+    [s]   crawler    <scrapy.crawler.Crawler object at 0x7f07395dd690>
     [s]   item       {}
     [s]   request    <GET http://scrapy.org>
-    [s]   response   <200 http://scrapy.org>
-    [s]   settings   <scrapy.settings.Settings object at 0x2bfd650>
-    [s]   spider     <Spider 'default' at 0x20c6f50>
+    [s]   response   <200 https://scrapy.org/>
+    [s]   settings   <scrapy.settings.Settings object at 0x7f07395dd710>
+    [s]   spider     <DefaultSpider 'default' at 0x7f0735891690>
     [s] Useful shortcuts:
+    [s]   fetch(url[, redirect=True]) Fetch URL and update local objects (by default, redirects are followed)
+    [s]   fetch(req)                  Fetch a scrapy.Request and update local objects
     [s]   shelp()           Shell help (print this help)
-    [s]   fetch(req_or_url) Fetch request (or URL) and update local objects
     [s]   view(response)    View response in a browser
 
     >>>
 
+
 After that, we can start playing with the objects::
 
     >>> response.xpath('//title/text()').extract_first()
     'Scrapy | A Fast and Powerful Scraping and Web Crawling Framework'
 
     >>> fetch("http://reddit.com")
-    [s] Available Scrapy objects:
-    [s]   crawler    <scrapy.crawler.Crawler object at 0x7fb3ed9c9c90>
-    [s]   item       {}
-    [s]   request    <GET http://reddit.com>
-    [s]   response   <200 https://www.reddit.com/>
-    [s]   settings   <scrapy.settings.Settings object at 0x7fb3ed9c9c10>
-    [s]   spider     <DefaultSpider 'default' at 0x7fb3ecdd3390>
-    [s] Useful shortcuts:
-    [s]   shelp()           Shell help (print this help)
-    [s]   fetch(req_or_url) Fetch request (or URL) and update local objects
-    [s]   view(response)    View response in a browser
 
     >>> response.xpath('//title/text()').extract()
     ['reddit: the front page of the internet']
@@ -194,12 +190,36 @@ After that, we can start playing with the objects::
     >>> request = request.replace(method="POST")
 
     >>> fetch(request)
-    [s] Available Scrapy objects:
-    [s]   crawler    <scrapy.crawler.Crawler object at 0x1e16b50>
-    ...
 
+    >>> response.status
+    404
+
+    >>> from pprint import pprint
+
+    >>> pprint(response.headers)
+    {'Accept-Ranges': ['bytes'],
+     'Cache-Control': ['max-age=0, must-revalidate'],
+     'Content-Type': ['text/html; charset=UTF-8'],
+     'Date': ['Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:21:19 GMT'],
+     'Server': ['snooserv'],
+     'Set-Cookie': ['loid=KqNLou0V9SKMX4qb4n; Domain=reddit.com; Max-Age=63071999; Path=/; expires=Sat, 08-Dec-2018 16:21:19 GMT; secure',
+                    'loidcreated=2016-12-08T16%3A21%3A19.445Z; Domain=reddit.com; Max-Age=63071999; Path=/; expires=Sat, 08-Dec-2018 16:21:19 GMT; secure',
+                    'loid=vi0ZVe4NkxNWdlH7r7; Domain=reddit.com; Max-Age=63071999; Path=/; expires=Sat, 08-Dec-2018 16:21:19 GMT; secure',
+                    'loidcreated=2016-12-08T16%3A21%3A19.459Z; Domain=reddit.com; Max-Age=63071999; Path=/; expires=Sat, 08-Dec-2018 16:21:19 GMT; secure'],
+     'Vary': ['accept-encoding'],
+     'Via': ['1.1 varnish'],
+     'X-Cache': ['MISS'],
+     'X-Cache-Hits': ['0'],
+     'X-Content-Type-Options': ['nosniff'],
+     'X-Frame-Options': ['SAMEORIGIN'],
+     'X-Moose': ['majestic'],
+     'X-Served-By': ['cache-cdg8730-CDG'],
+     'X-Timer': ['S1481214079.394283,VS0,VE159'],
+     'X-Ua-Compatible': ['IE=edge'],
+     'X-Xss-Protection': ['1; mode=block']}
     >>>
 
+
 .. _topics-shell-inspect-response:
 
 Invoking the shell from spiders to inspect responses
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/fetch.py b/scrapy/commands/fetch.py
index f09a873c1..7d4840529 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/fetch.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/fetch.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from w3lib.url import is_url
 from scrapy.commands import ScrapyCommand
 from scrapy.http import Request
 from scrapy.exceptions import UsageError
+from scrapy.utils.datatypes import SequenceExclude
 from scrapy.utils.spider import spidercls_for_request, DefaultSpider
 
 class Command(ScrapyCommand):
@@ -27,6 +28,8 @@ class Command(ScrapyCommand):
             help="use this spider")
         parser.add_option("--headers", dest="headers", action="store_true", \
             help="print response HTTP headers instead of body")
+        parser.add_option("--no-redirect", dest="no_redirect", action="store_true", \
+            default=False, help="do not handle HTTP 3xx status codes and print response as-is")
 
     def _print_headers(self, headers, prefix):
         for key, values in headers.items():
@@ -50,7 +53,12 @@ class Command(ScrapyCommand):
             raise UsageError()
         cb = lambda x: self._print_response(x, opts)
         request = Request(args[0], callback=cb, dont_filter=True)
-        request.meta['handle_httpstatus_all'] = True
+        # by default, let the framework handle redirects,
+        # i.e. command handles all codes expect 3xx
+        if not opts.no_redirect:
+            request.meta['handle_httpstatus_list'] = SequenceExclude(range(300, 400))
+        else:
+            request.meta['handle_httpstatus_all'] = True
 
         spidercls = DefaultSpider
         spider_loader = self.crawler_process.spider_loader
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/shell.py b/scrapy/commands/shell.py
index 7be7f7256..40a58d94a 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/shell.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/shell.py
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ class Command(ScrapyCommand):
             help="evaluate the code in the shell, print the result and exit")
         parser.add_option("--spider", dest="spider",
             help="use this spider")
+        parser.add_option("--no-redirect", dest="no_redirect", action="store_true", \
+            default=False, help="do not handle HTTP 3xx status codes and print response as-is")
 
     def update_vars(self, vars):
         """You can use this function to update the Scrapy objects that will be
@@ -68,7 +70,7 @@ class Command(ScrapyCommand):
         self._start_crawler_thread()
 
         shell = Shell(crawler, update_vars=self.update_vars, code=opts.code)
-        shell.start(url=url)
+        shell.start(url=url, redirect=not opts.no_redirect)
 
     def _start_crawler_thread(self):
         t = Thread(target=self.crawler_process.start,
diff --git a/scrapy/shell.py b/scrapy/shell.py
index 183ee1f70..6f94635a1 100644
--- a/scrapy/shell.py
+++ b/scrapy/shell.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ from scrapy.item import BaseItem
 from scrapy.settings import Settings
 from scrapy.spiders import Spider
 from scrapy.utils.console import start_python_console
+from scrapy.utils.datatypes import SequenceExclude
 from scrapy.utils.misc import load_object
 from scrapy.utils.response import open_in_browser
 from scrapy.utils.conf import get_config
@@ -40,11 +41,11 @@ class Shell(object):
         self.code = code
         self.vars = {}
 
-    def start(self, url=None, request=None, response=None, spider=None):
+    def start(self, url=None, request=None, response=None, spider=None, redirect=True):
         # disable accidental Ctrl-C key press from shutting down the engine
         signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal.SIG_IGN)
         if url:
-            self.fetch(url, spider)
+            self.fetch(url, spider, redirect=redirect)
         elif request:
             self.fetch(request, spider)
         elif response:
@@ -98,14 +99,16 @@ class Shell(object):
         self.spider = spider
         return spider
 
-    def fetch(self, request_or_url, spider=None):
+    def fetch(self, request_or_url, spider=None, redirect=True, **kwargs):
         if isinstance(request_or_url, Request):
             request = request_or_url
-            url = request.url
         else:
             url = any_to_uri(request_or_url)
-            request = Request(url, dont_filter=True)
-            request.meta['handle_httpstatus_all'] = True
+            request = Request(url, dont_filter=True, **kwargs)
+            if redirect:
+                request.meta['handle_httpstatus_list'] = SequenceExclude(range(300, 400))
+            else:
+                request.meta['handle_httpstatus_all'] = True
         response = None
         try:
             response, spider = threads.blockingCallFromThread(
@@ -144,10 +147,13 @@ class Shell(object):
             if self._is_relevant(v):
                 b.append("  %-10s %s" % (k, v))
         b.append("Useful shortcuts:")
-        b.append("  shelp()           Shell help (print this help)")
         if self.inthread:
-            b.append("  fetch(req_or_url) Fetch request (or URL) and "
-                     "update local objects")
+            b.append("  fetch(url[, redirect=True]) "
+                     "Fetch URL and update local objects "
+                     "(by default, redirects are followed)")
+            b.append("  fetch(req)                  "
+                     "Fetch a scrapy.Request and update local objects ")
+        b.append("  shelp()           Shell help (print this help)")
         b.append("  view(response)    View response in a browser")
 
         return "\n".join("[s] %s" % l for l in b)
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py b/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py
index d04b43176..e516185bd 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py
@@ -304,3 +304,13 @@ class LocalCache(OrderedDict):
         while len(self) >= self.limit:
             self.popitem(last=False)
         super(LocalCache, self).__setitem__(key, value)
+
+
+class SequenceExclude(object):
+    """Object to test if an item is NOT within some sequence."""
+
+    def __init__(self, seq):
+        self.seq = seq
+
+    def __contains__(self, item):
+        return item not in self.seq

diff --git a/scrapy/utils/testsite.py b/scrapy/utils/testsite.py
index ad0375443..e50a989b3 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/testsite.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/testsite.py
@@ -20,12 +20,20 @@ class SiteTest(object):
         return urljoin(self.baseurl, path)
 
 
+class NoMetaRefreshRedirect(util.Redirect):
+    def render(self, request):
+        content = util.Redirect.render(self, request)
+        return content.replace(b'http-equiv=\"refresh\"',
+            b'http-no-equiv=\"do-not-refresh-me\"')
+
+
 def test_site():
     r = resource.Resource()
     r.putChild(b"text", static.Data(b"Works", "text/plain"))
     r.putChild(b"html", static.Data(b"<body><p class='one'>Works</p><p class='two'>World</p></body>", "text/html"))
     r.putChild(b"enc-gb18030", static.Data(b"<p>gb18030 encoding</p>", "text/html; charset=gb18030"))
     r.putChild(b"redirect", util.Redirect(b"/redirected"))
+    r.putChild(b"redirect-no-meta-refresh", NoMetaRefreshRedirect(b"/redirected"))
     r.putChild(b"redirected", static.Data(b"Redirected here", "text/plain"))
     return server.Site(r)
 
diff --git a/tests/test_command_fetch.py b/tests/test_command_fetch.py
index 4843a9a2f..3fa3ed930 100644
--- a/tests/test_command_fetch.py
+++ b/tests/test_command_fetch.py
@@ -14,6 +14,18 @@ class FetchTest(ProcessTest, SiteTest, unittest.TestCase):
         _, out, _ = yield self.execute([self.url('/text')])
         self.assertEqual(out.strip(), b'Works')
 
+    @defer.inlineCallbacks
+    def test_redirect_default(self):
+        _, out, _ = yield self.execute([self.url('/redirect')])
+        self.assertEqual(out.strip(), b'Redirected here')
+
+    @defer.inlineCallbacks
+    def test_redirect_disabled(self):
+        _, out, err = yield self.execute(['--no-redirect', self.url('/redirect-no-meta-refresh')])
+        err = err.strip()
+        self.assertIn(b'downloader/response_status_count/302', err, err)
+        self.assertNotIn(b'downloader/response_status_count/200', err, err)
+
     @defer.inlineCallbacks
     def test_headers(self):
         _, out, _ = yield self.execute([self.url('/text'), '--headers'])
diff --git a/tests/test_command_shell.py b/tests/test_command_shell.py
index 7bb7439d6..3e27d6abd 100644
--- a/tests/test_command_shell.py
+++ b/tests/test_command_shell.py
@@ -49,6 +49,35 @@ class ShellTest(ProcessTest, SiteTest, unittest.TestCase):
         _, out, _ = yield self.execute([self.url('/redirect'), '-c', 'response.url'])
         assert out.strip().endswith(b'/redirected')
 
+    @defer.inlineCallbacks
+    def test_redirect_follow_302(self):
+        _, out, _ = yield self.execute([self.url('/redirect-no-meta-refresh'), '-c', 'response.status'])
+        assert out.strip().endswith(b'200')
+
+    @defer.inlineCallbacks
+    def test_redirect_not_follow_302(self):
+        _, out, _ = yield self.execute(['--no-redirect', self.url('/redirect-no-meta-refresh'), '-c', 'response.status'])
+        assert out.strip().endswith(b'302')
+
+    @defer.inlineCallbacks
+    def test_fetch_redirect_follow_302(self):
+        """Test that calling `fetch(url)` follows HTTP redirects by default."""
+        url = self.url('/redirect-no-meta-refresh')
+        code = "fetch('{0}')"
+        errcode, out, errout = yield self.execute(['-c', code.format(url)])
+        self.assertEqual(errcode, 0, out)
+        assert b'Redirecting (302)' in errout
+        assert b'Crawled (200)' in errout
+
+    @defer.inlineCallbacks
+    def test_fetch_redirect_not_follow_302(self):
+        """Test that calling `fetch(url, redirect=False)` disables automatic redirects."""
+        url = self.url('/redirect-no-meta-refresh')
+        code = "fetch('{0}', redirect=False)"
+        errcode, out, errout = yield self.execute(['-c', code.format(url)])
+        self.assertEqual(errcode, 0, out)
+        assert b'Crawled (302)' in errout
+
     @defer.inlineCallbacks
     def test_request_replace(self):
         url = self.url('/text')
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py b/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py
index b31d2179c..80f797227 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import copy
 import unittest
 
-from scrapy.utils.datatypes import CaselessDict
+from scrapy.utils.datatypes import CaselessDict, SequenceExclude
 
 __doctests__ = ['scrapy.utils.datatypes']
 
@@ -128,6 +128,67 @@ class CaselessDictTest(unittest.TestCase):
         assert isinstance(h2, CaselessDict)
 
 
+class SequenceExcludeTest(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def test_list(self):
+        seq = [1, 2, 3]
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        self.assertIn(0, d)
+        self.assertIn(4, d)
+        self.assertNotIn(2, d)
+
+    def test_range(self):
+        seq = range(10, 20)
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        self.assertIn(5, d)
+        self.assertIn(20, d)
+        self.assertNotIn(15, d)
+
+    def test_six_range(self):
+        import six.moves
+        seq = six.moves.range(10**3, 10**6)
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        self.assertIn(10**2, d)
+        self.assertIn(10**7, d)
+        self.assertNotIn(10**4, d)
+
+    def test_range_step(self):
+        seq = range(10, 20, 3)
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        are_not_in = [v for v in range(10, 20, 3) if v in d]
+        self.assertEquals([], are_not_in)
+
+        are_not_in = [v for v in range(10, 20) if v in d]
+        self.assertEquals([11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18], are_not_in)
+
+    def test_string_seq(self):
+        seq = "cde"
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        chars = "".join(v for v in "abcdefg" if v in d)
+        self.assertEquals("abfg", chars)
+
+    def test_stringset_seq(self):
+        seq = set("cde")
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        chars = "".join(v for v in "abcdefg" if v in d)
+        self.assertEquals("abfg", chars)
+
+    def test_set(self):
+        """Anything that is not in the supplied sequence will evaluate as 'in' the container."""
+        seq = set([-3, "test", 1.1])
+        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
+        self.assertIn(0, d)
+        self.assertIn("foo", d)
+        self.assertIn(3.14, d)
+        self.assertIn(set("bar"), d)
+
+        # supplied sequence is a set, so checking for list (non)inclusion fails
+        self.assertRaises(TypeError, (0, 1, 2) in d)
+        self.assertRaises(TypeError, d.__contains__, ['a', 'b', 'c'])
+
+        for v in [-3, "test", 1.1]:
+            self.assertNotIn(v, d)
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()
 

Scrapy should follow redirects on scrapy shell by default
Scrapy shell doesn't follow redirects when you do `fetch('http://google.com')`, but it does if you do ` `fetch(scrapy.Request('http://google.com'))`.

I realize this is a historic behavior, but I'd argue that it breaks the expectations for most users, since the most common expectation is that Scrapy would try to do what a browser would do, so I think we should change it.

In my opinion, not following the redirect should be the exceptional behavior, and so that's what should require the user to build a `scrapy.Request` object.

I think ideally, we would be able to pass a keyword argument to `fetch`, like:

```
fetch('http://google.com', redirect=False)
```

And only for that case it would set handle_httpstatus_all to True as explained by @redapple here: https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy/issues/2177#issuecomment-239430163
scrapy/utils/testsite.py::test_site tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_caseless tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_contains tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_copy tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_delete tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_fromkeys tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_getdefault tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_init tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_normkey tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_normvalue tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_pop tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::CaselessDictTest::test_setdefault tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_list tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_range tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_range_step tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_set tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_six_range tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_string_seq tests/test_utils_datatypes.py::SequenceExcludeTest::test_stringset_seq