Is there any foolproof way to disable caching of everything on a page (page, CSS, JS, images, etc.)? I've used Pragma and Cache-control, but they still gave me cached images.

Maybe I'm using them wrong? I have the lines


Code:


in a file called dochead.inc that gets include('d by every page. Does that (meaning having it in an include( instead of adding that code directly) break the cache-control stuff?

Those headers only apply to the page itself. You'd have to make the webserver return the same headers on images fetched as well, which could be a bit awkward.

So it doesn't matter that the actual header(s aren't in the page itself, right?

Too bad images aren't affected. I don't understand .htaccess or stuff like that

Take a look at this for a nice simple explanation of the proper .htaccess implementation:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/apache/3540207.htm

The most reliable way I've found is to send a dummy query parameter along with every request that changes each time; for example, file.jpg?refresh=<random number>. As long as the parameter changes each time the browser should not cache the file.

Bear in mind that older versions of IE will refuse to download data (displaying HTTP 404 instead) if you send any cache-related headers when using SSL (https://). I think the idea is that IE is trying to avoid putting encrypted content in the unencrypted cache in case it receives a header telling it to cache the content but ends up doing so in a rather excessive manner.

Oh, thanks. That would affect images and other media as well?

I believe so! Your best way to be sure would be to drop that into your htaccess and give it a try. You can also wrap it in a FilesMatch (as the target page says) in order to limit to a particular file or filetype.

The real question is WHY do you want to disable caching? That is going to be terrible for the server AND terrible for clients.

Whatever you are trying to do, you are going about it in a very wrong way.

But to answer your question, no, there is no way. Those headers are more suggestions than requirements - and mobile browser in particular tend to completely ignore them.

Yeah, that really should have been my first question. I made the perhaps fallacious assumption that it was for a signature bar that would show the progress of some project.

I just realized I don't actually need it for my webpages... For sigs I guess changing the URL would work. Thanks anyway, it might come in handy later

Sure thing. I do hope that you manage to come up with a solution that doesn't involve cache-busting for functionality and politeness reasons.