from VB open HTML page and read text

not using a webbrowser control (or any control if possible) I am looking for a way to open a html page on a webserver and read its text...

for example, the page would sit at http://www.mysite.com/x.htm

x.htm contains an IP address 192.168.0.1

i want to just read that text into a variable.

I accomplished this using the web browser control and MSHTML reference but I would like to do it without... perhaps using windows sockets or something i am not familiar with?

You could use the inetcontrol and download the file ... I don't think there's any way to do it without an additional control - you could use winsock(crap - that's also a control addition, hehe).

Is it even possible to retrieve data from the internet using only the common vb controls !?

i found example code here
http://www.winsockvb.com/index.php?cat_id=3

got it to work using windows sockets API instead of winsock control so I don't need to add another control to the app