IPrincipal or Membership to retrieve username

Question

What is the difference when retrieving username for the view?

<%= Page.User.Identity.Name %>

or

<%= Membership.GetUser().UserName %>

Answer 1

According to the documentation, GetUser gets the information from the data source and updates the last-activity date/time stamp for the current logged-on membership user.

Page.User.Identity.Name does not do that. It reads information that is readily available in memory.