.NET HttpWebRequest Speed versus Browser

Question

I have a question regarding the performance of the .Net HttpWebRequest client (or WebClient, gives similar results).

If I use HttpWebRequest to request an html page

Answer 1

Run the application with Ctrl+F5 instead of F5 (Debug mode). You will see a difference:

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        using (var client = new WebClient())
        {
            Stopwatch watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            var data = client.DownloadData("http://news.bbc.co.uk");
            watch.Start();
            Console.WriteLine("{0} ms", watch.ElapsedMilliseconds);
        }
    }
}

Prints 880 ms on my PC.