How can I perform a GET request without downloading the content?

Question

I am working on a link checker, in general I can perform HEAD requests, however some sites seem to disable this verb, so on failure I need to also perform a G

Answer 1

Couldn't you use a WebClient to open a stream and read just the few bytes you require?

using (var client = new WebClient())
        {
            using (var stream = client.OpenRead(uri))
            {
                const int chunkSize = 100;
                var buffer = new byte[chunkSize];
                int bytesRead;
                while ((bytesRead = stream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
                {
                    //check response here
                }
            }
        }

I am not sure how WebClient opens the stream internally. But it seems to allow partial reading of data.