Monitor web pages access

Question

I hope I can get some help. I’m trying to create an host based application using C# (in the simplest way) to monitor access to a web page from the computer that hosts the application, if this web page is accessed while the program is running an event should rise. So far I have used the SHDocVw.ShellWindows() but it works only if the web page has already been accessed not while is being accessed. It monitors Windows Internet Explorer

I have also researched the httplistener but to no avail.

Do you have any solution? Please let me know if you require more details

Answer 1

This may or may not be valid for your situation, but I had to do something similar with an Intranet website (cross-browser so it was a little harder than just with IE) recently. My solution was to setup a client-side application which hosts a WCF service. Then, when the user clicks a link on the web page (or raises any event, such as, $(document).ready) it sends an message back to the server telling the server to connect to the IP address associated with the current session (really just the IP Address on the request) on a known port. This connection is made to the client side application which is listening at that IP address and port for instructions on what to do (in my case it is dynamically compiling code in the request and running it).

That of course will only work for Intranet websites. A more general approach that will work for IE across the internet, is to create a IE extension (or maybe a Silverlight application) that talks on localhost. I've never done it, so I can't tell you how or if it is actually possible (but in principle seems possible).

If you don't have access to the website at all then perhaps using SharpPCAP or the Fiddler API would work for you.