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Dim webClient As New System.Net.WebClient
Dim result As String = webClient.DownloadString("http://api.hostip.info/?ip=68.180.206.184")
In C#:
System.Net.WebClient webClient = new System.Net.WebClient();
string result = webClient.DownloadString("http://api.hostip.info/?ip=68.180.206.184");
                Dim webClient As System.Net.WebClient = New System.Net.WebClient() can be abbreviated to Dim webClient As New System.Net.WebClient can't it?
– Matt Lyons-Wood
                Nov 29, 2011 at 22:36
                @MattLyons Yes, it can. One could also omit As String from Dim result As String = ..., but I'll just leave that here for now.
– hangy
                Mar 23, 2012 at 16:07
                @Matt Use HttpWebRequest and set the Credentials property to a new instance of NetworkCredential.
– hangy
                Jan 9, 2013 at 19:00
You can use the HttpWebRequest class to perform a request and retrieve a response from a given URL. You'll use it like:
    Dim fr As System.Net.HttpWebRequest
    Dim targetURI As New Uri("http://whatever.you.want.to.get/file.html")         
    fr = DirectCast(HttpWebRequest.Create(targetURI), System.Net.HttpWebRequest)
    If (fr.GetResponse().ContentLength > 0) Then
        Dim str As New System.IO.StreamReader(fr.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
        Response.Write(str.ReadToEnd())
        str.Close(); 
    End If   
Catch ex As System.Net.WebException
   'Error in accessing the resource, handle it
End Try
HttpWebRequest is detailed at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httpwebrequest.aspx
A second option is to use the WebClient class, this provides an easier to use interface for downloading web resources but is not as flexible as HttpWebRequest:
Sub Main()
    'Address of URL
    Dim URL As String = http://whatever.com
    ' Get HTML data
    Dim client As WebClient = New WebClient()
    Dim data As Stream = client.OpenRead(URL)
    Dim reader As StreamReader = New StreamReader(data)
    Dim str As String = ""
    str = reader.ReadLine()
    Do While str.Length > 0
        Console.WriteLine(str)
        str = reader.ReadLine()
End Sub
More info on the webclient can be found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.webclient.aspx
                WebClient is a quick solution, but the HttpWebRequest is more powerful. In a project I needed to get images metadata from remote resources: I avoided to download the images into the fs, and I used the ResponseStream insted.
– Alberto De Caro
                Jun 6, 2012 at 13:51
                @marshalcraft - should work fine for https see stackoverflow.com/questions/560804/… for pointers if it's not working for you
– Wolfwyrd
                Jan 31, 2017 at 15:10
    Dim _WebRequest As System.Net.WebRequest = Nothing
    _WebRequest = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(http://api.hostip.info/?ip=68.180.206.184)
Catch ex As Exception
    Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
    Exit Sub
End Try
    _NormalImage = Image.FromStream(_WebRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
Catch ex As Exception
    Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
    Exit Sub
End Try
WebResponse response;
try { response = request.GetResponse(); }
catch (WebException exc) { response = exc.Response; }
if (response == null)
    throw new HttpException((int)HttpStatusCode.NotFound, "The requested url could not be found.");
using(StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())) {
    string requestedText = reader.ReadToEnd();
    // do what you want with requestedText
Sorry about the C#, I know you asked for VB, but I didn't have time to convert.
Public Function getLoginresponce(ByVal email As String, ByVal password As String) As String
    Dim requestUrl As String = "your api"
    Dim request As HttpWebRequest = TryCast(WebRequest.Create(requestUrl), HttpWebRequest)
    Dim response As HttpWebResponse = TryCast(request.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)
    Dim dataStream As Stream = response.GetResponseStream()
    Dim reader As New StreamReader(dataStream)
    Dim responseFromServer As String = reader.ReadToEnd()
    Dim result = responseFromServer
    reader.Close()
    response.Close()
    Return result
End Function
        
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