C# WebClient with Cookies

 

Well, you’re probably reading this because you noticed that .NET’s WebClient doesn’t support cookies. Basically, the cookies which are received through the WebRequest are NOT stored and also NOT sent - this is how it works by default.

How to fix this?

Here, I’ll show you how to make WebClient handle cookies. All you have to do is to add a CookieContainer, this is where the cookies will be stored. Then you’ll just include this CookieContainer in your original request, by overriding GetWebRequest.

I’ll post the code and I’ll explain it using comments:

public class ImprovedWebClient : WebClient
{
            CookieContainer cookies = new CookieContainer();
            //^here are automatically stored the cookies

            protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri address)
            {
                WebRequest request = base.GetWebRequest(address); 

                if (request is HttpWebRequest)  //if it is a Http request
                    ((HttpWebRequest)request).CookieContainer = cookies;  
                    //^we bind that cookie container to the request

                return request; // return the modified request (the one with cookies)
            }
}

That’s all, now you don’t have to use WebClient anymore, so just use derived class - ImprovedWebClient:

ImprovedWebClient client = new ImprovedWebClient();