 <ol> <li>DownloadFile is just a wrapper around a raw WebRequest; it just processes the result and packages it as a "file" or a byte array.</li> <li><p>It works; but the data that is sent to the local file is still compressed, you'll have to decompress it manually.</p></li> <li><p>You get a default UserAgent. There isn't any particular UserAgent values necessary, unless the site your accessing requires one. But, you'll have to find that out. (Jeff's post suggest Google requires one; but I don't know if that still true)</p></li> </ol>