I’ve been working on a simple internet data miner using the .NET WebBrowser form.  Getting raw html into a .NET program is as easy – just navigate the WebBrowser to an internet address and you can click around and browse as usual, all while

You just have to get through a little bit of this mess:

<div class="col20 vehicle-info">
 <h4 class="secondary">
 <a name="&lid=md-ymmt" rel="nofollow" href="/go/search/detail.jsp?tracktype=usedcc&amp;csDlId=&amp;csDgId=&amp;listingId=132207735&amp;listingRecNum=2&amp;criteria=feedSegId%3D28705%26rpp%3D50%26isDealerGrouping%3Dfalse%26sf2Nm%3Dmiles%26sf1Nm%3Dprice%26sf2Dir%3DASC%26stkTypId%3D28881%26PMmt%3D1-1-0%26rn%3D0%26zc%3D95008%26rd%3D20%26crSrtFlds%3DstkTypId-feedSegId-mkId-mdId%26mdId%3D21758%26stkTyp%3DU%26mkId%3D20089%26sf1Dir%3DDESC&amp;aff=gogsemc&amp;listType=4">

 <span class="modelYearSort">2012</span>
 <span class="mmtSort">Volkswagen Passat SEL</span>
 </a>

 </h4>

but how hard can that be?  The only problem will be if Cars.com changes its html search results code, but after a little fine tuning I was able to download data on about 2600 cars from the website.  A little .NET is a small price to pay for car-buying confidence.