Firefox cache

[The Crofter]

This info may be of use to anyone who is involved with running a website.

When you revisit a web page (in Firefox) it will show the page currently stored on disk (cache)or in memory. Firefox will (by default) only refresh the page if it is out of date. This speeds up the browser but if the page has changed you will not see the results. The effect is that despite updating a page the changes will not be visible until the expiry date has passed or the page is manually refreshed in the browser. This can cause a great deal of head scratching.

Firefox allows four different settings to be applied:

Value=0
Check for a new version of a page once per session. A session starts when the first application window opens and ends when the last application window closes.

Value=1
Check for a new version every time a page is loaded.

Value=2
Never check for a new version.

Value=3
Check for a new version when the page is out of date (default)


To change the value :

1. Open a browser window, delete the address in the URL bar and type about:config
2. Click enter to see Firefox settings.
3. Scroll down to browser.cache.check_doc_frequency
4. Highlight and double click, Change the 3 to a 1 in the dialogue box.
5. Click OK
6. Close window, exit and restart Firefox to apply the change.

Incidently, Internet Explorer refreshes the page by default.

[TheFrameShed]

Good call, Firefox is a great for customising your browsing. On the same subject;

If you want to make sure that your own website always shows the newest pages then copy and paste the following code between the HTML and HEAD HTML of your pages.

<?php
header("Refresh: 1;");
?>

This automatically forces any browser you are using to show the latest page. The '1' in the code is the amount of seconds it takes before the browser performs a refresh from your server and this can be changed if you wish.
Don't know if this is relevant but I hope it's useful for anyone maintaining their own site.
All the best

PS tried Chrome yet?

[The Crofter]

Thanks for the tip, I only have the basic hosting package from 1&1 so (I think) user php scripts will not be recognised. Not too familiar with the workings of my server so perhaps I am talking rubbish...

Re Chrome, not tried it yet but apart from being compact and uncluttered I am not sure if it offers any advantages. I use DAP as my download manager and they have only just managed to get it to function with FF3 and even that requires a clunky flashget plugin so it will probably be another year before it is compatable with Chrome.

What are your thoughts ?.

[TheFrameShed]

You would need php enabled on your server but double check your package as most hosts include php now.
I like chrome and its certainly very clean and therefore speedy but I've been using FF for so long its difficult to break the habit. For now I shall continue my quest to convert everyone I know away from IE and Outlook Express. I have no grudge against Microsoft, they're just carp products when you have the likes of FF, Chrome and Gmail available for nowt.