Downloading web pages

The basic ability to download a web page involves making an HTTP GET request against a URL. This is the basic operation of any web browser.

Let's quickly recap the different parts of this operation, as it has three distinct elements:

1. Using the HTTP protocol. This deals with the way the request is structured.
2. Using the GET method, which is the most common HTTP method. We'll see more in the Accessing web APIs recipe.
3. A full URL describing the address of the page, including the server (for example: mypage.com) and the path (for example: /page).

That request will be routed toward the server by the internet and processed by the server, then a response will be sent back. This response will contain a status code, typically 200 if everything went fine, and a body with the result, which will normally be text with an HTML page.

Most of this is handled automatically by the HTTP client used to perform the request. We...