Sometimes we may need to get the HTML contents of a web page programmatically and without loading it in a browser. The following code can be used for doing it. Let’s take a look..

Private Function ReturnWebData(ByVal URL As String) As String
        Dim WebResltStr As String = Nothing
        Dim DtStrm As Stream = Nothing
        Dim StrmRdr As StreamReader = Nothing

        Dim WebReqst As WebRequest = Nothing
        Dim WebResp As HttpWebResponse = Nothing

        Try
            'Create the web request
            WebReqst = WebRequest.Create(URL)
            WebReqst.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials 

            'Get the response
            WebResp = DirectCast(WebReqst.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)

            If WebResp.StatusDescription = "OK" Then
                Try
                    DtStrm = WebResp.GetResponseStream()
                    StrmRdr = New StreamReader(DtStrm)
                    WebResltStr = StrmRdr.ReadToEnd()

                Finally
                    StrmRdr.Close()
                    DtStrm.Close()
                End Try
            End If
            WebResp.Close()
            Return (WebResltStr)
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return (Nothing)
        End Try

    End Function