What is the best way to send HTTP requests from Windows Powershell?

Question

What is the best way to send HTTP requests from Windows Powershell?

Answer 1

Found one way:

$page = (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString("http://localhost/")

Thanks to Steven Murawski for his comment:

The best way really depends on what task you are trying to accomplish as the two answers below have noted. WebClient is the simplest, but HttpWebRequest is the most flexible.

Answer 2

System.Net.WebClient is the easiest way to do it for simple GET request. However if you need to do a POST request for a form then you will need to use System.Net.HttpWebRequest.

Answer 3

Hop on sapienpress.com/powershell.asp; go to the bottom of the page and download the book samples. There are a few examples of how to retrieve info via HTTP, as well as how to create a simple WebRequest (say to check a Web server status)