Do you use a regular expression to validate an URL?

A regex is the best way to verify an URI.

public bool IsValidUri(string uri)
{
try 
{ 
Uri testUri = new Uri(uri); 
return true; 
} 
catch (UriFormatException ex)
{ 
return false; 
} 
}

public bool IsValidUri(string uri) 
{ 
// Return true if it is in valid Uri format.
return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.IsMatch( uri,@"^(http|ftp|https)://([^\/][\w-/:]+\.?)+([\w- ./?/:/;/\%&=]+)?(/[\w- ./?/:/;/\%&=]*)?"); 
}

You should have unit tests for it, see our Rules to Better Unit Tests for more information.