I'm currently developping an app that is going through all the files on a server and checking every single hrefs to check wether they are valid or not. Using a WebClient or a HttpWebRequest/HttpWebResponse is kinda overkilling the process because it downloads the whole page each time, which is useless, I only need to check if the link do not return 404.

What would be the most efficient way? Socket seems to be a good way of doing it, however I'm not quite sure how this works.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!