HTTP Features

• ETag and Last-Modified Headers
  • Using ETags to reduce bandwidth
  • Using Last-Modified headers to reduce bandwidth
• User-Agent and Referer Headers
  • Customizing the User-Agent
  • Customizing the referrer
• HTTP Redirects
  • Noticing temporary redirects
  • Noticing permanent redirects
  • Noticing feeds marked “gone”
• Password-Protected Feeds
  • Downloading a feed protected by basic authentication (the easy way)
  • Downloading a feed protected by digest authentication (the easy but horribly insecure way)
  • Downloading a feed protected by HTTP basic authentication (the hard way)
  • Downloading a feed protected by HTTP digest authentication (the secure way)
  • Determining that a feed is password-protected
• Other HTTP Headers
  • Sending custom HTTP request headers
  • Accessing other HTTP response headers