USes the Request and Response object to return content from a Web site.

Public Function GetPageText(ByVal URL As String) As String
            Dim response As HttpWebResponse = GetResponse(URL)
            Dim s As Stream = response.GetResponseStream
            Dim enc As String = response.ContentEncoding.Trim
            If enc = "" Then enc = "us-ascii"
            Dim encode As Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(enc)
            Dim sr As StreamReader = New StreamReader(s, encode)
            Return sr.ReadToEnd
        End Function


        Public Function GetResponse(ByVal url As String) As HttpWebResponse
            Dim request As HttpWebRequest = CreateRequest(url)
            Return request.GetResponse
        End Function


        Public Function CreateRequest(ByVal url As String) As HttpWebRequest
            Dim req As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(url)
            Dim Null As Object
            Dim wreq As HttpWebRequest = req
            If Not (wreq Is Null) Then
                wreq.UserAgent = userAgent
                wreq.Referer = referer
                wreq.Timeout = defaultTimeout
            End If
            Return wreq
        End Function
    End Class