A (slightly) better WebClient class supporting cookies and headers

I use C# frequently to scrape information from sites. The standard C# WebClient is not always sufficient.

I like to:

• store/retrieve cookies - needed for session support;
• prevent redirects;
• retrieve the HttpStatusCode of a request.

Overloading

I've ended up overloading .NET's WebClient class and overriding the GetWebRequest method to set the cookie container and the redirect setting. To further improve performance I've also enabled compression.

/// <summary>
/// A (slightly) better version of .Net's default <see cref="WebClient"/>.
/// The extra features include:
/// ability to disable automatic redirect handling,
/// sessions through a cookie container,
/// indicate to the webserver that GZip compression can be used,
/// exposure of the HTTP status code of the last request,
/// exposure of any response header of the last request,
/// ability to modify the request before it is send.
/// </summary>
/// <seealso cref="System.Net.WebClient" />
public class BetterWebClient : WebClient
{
    private WebRequest _request = null;

    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="BetterWebClient" /> class.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="cookies">The cookies. If set to <c>null</c> a container will be created.</param>
    /// <param name="autoRedirect">if set to <c>true</c> the client should handle the redirect automatically. Default value is <c>true</c></param>
    public BetterWebClient(CookieContainer cookies = null, bool autoRedirect = true)
    {
        CookieContainer = cookies ?? new CookieContainer();
        AutoRedirect = autoRedirect;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether to automatically redirect when a 301 or 302 is returned by the request.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>
    ///   <c>true</c> if the client should handle the redirect automatically; otherwise, <c>false</c>.
    /// </value>
    public bool AutoRedirect { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets the cookie container. This contains all the cookies for all the requests.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>
    /// The cookie container.
    /// </value>
    public CookieContainer CookieContainer { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the cookies header (Set-Cookie) of the last request.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>
    /// The cookies or <c>null</c>.
    /// </value>
    public string Cookies
    {
        get { return GetHeaderValue("Set-Cookie"); }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the location header for the last request.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>
    /// The location or <c>null</c>.
    /// </value>
    public string Location
    {
        get { return GetHeaderValue("Location"); }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the status code. When no request is present, <see cref="HttpStatusCode.Gone"/> will be returned.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>
    /// The status code or <see cref="HttpStatusCode.Gone"/>.
    /// </value>
    public HttpStatusCode StatusCode
    {
        get
        {
            var result = HttpStatusCode.Gone;

            if (_request != null)
            {
                var response = base.GetWebResponse(_request) as HttpWebResponse;

                if (response != null)
                {
                    result = response.StatusCode;
                }
            }

            return result;
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets the setup that is called before the request is done.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>
    /// The setup.
    /// </value>
    public Action<HttpWebRequest> Setup { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the header value.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="headerName">Name of the header.</param>
    /// <returns>The value.</returns>
    public string GetHeaderValue(string headerName)
    {
        if (_request != null)
        {
            return base.GetWebResponse(_request)?.Headers?[headerName];
        }

        return null;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Returns a <see cref="T:System.Net.WebRequest" /> object for the specified resource.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="address">A <see cref="T:System.Uri" /> that identifies the resource to request.</param>
    /// <returns>
    /// A new <see cref="T:System.Net.WebRequest" /> object for the specified resource.
    /// </returns>
    protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri address)
    {
        _request = base.GetWebRequest(address);

        var httpRequest = _request as HttpWebRequest;

        if (_request != null)
        {
            httpRequest.AllowAutoRedirect = AutoRedirect;
            httpRequest.CookieContainer = CookieContainer;
            httpRequest.AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.GZip | DecompressionMethods.Deflate;

            Setup?.Invoke(httpRequest);
        }

        return _request;
    }
}

Hope it helps.

Improvements

2015-05-21: The code is now part of the KeesTalksTech Utility Pack on GitHub. The class can be viewed here.
2015-05-21: Updated code to C# 6 with var's and dot operators (?.)
2015-05-21: Added a Setup action property to modify the request before it's done.
2015-05-21: Added XML documentation.