The .NET 2.0 BCL includes some significant enhancements for System.Net.WebClient, like async I/O, easy access to response headers, proxy handling…

Many of these advanced features in .NET 1.1 can only be used by programming directly with System.Net.HttpWebRequest and System.Net.HttpWebResponse. But in order to use a proxy server for your HTTP request, you don't need to do this. Even though there's no Proxy property in WebClient in .NET 1.1, you can still use a proxy through configuration (machine.config – messy) or through code with System.Net.GlobalProxySelection.Select. Just set the proxy before using your WebClient instance.

   1:  GlobalProxySelection.Select = new WebProxy("http://www-proxy.t-online.de:80", true);

   2:  WebClient client = new WebClient();

   3:  byte[] bytes = client.DownloadData("http://www.google.com/search?q=ASP.NET");