FRESH

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HTTP Caching, a Refresher

177 points by danburzo

by Joker_vD

4 subcomments

As is traditional with most explanations of HTTP caching, it doesn't mention Vary header. Although apparently some CDNs (e.g. Cloudflare) straight up ignore it for some reason [0].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38346382

by wbadart

0 subcomment

Great write up!
Wanted to highlight MDN's HTTP caching guide[0] that OP links in the conclusion. It's written at a higher level than the underlying reference material and has been a great resource I've turned to several times in the last few years.
[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Guides/Cac...

by KronisLV

0 subcomment

I found that Cache-Control with no-cache worked pretty well EXCEPT Apache2 would fail to return 304 when also compressing some of the resources: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/896974/apache-is-not-sen...
I think setting FileETag None solved it. With that setup, the browser won't use stale JS/CSS/whatever bundles, instead always validating them against the server, but when the browser already has the correct asset downloaded earlier, it will get a 304 and avoid downloading a lot of stuff. Pretty simple and works well for low traffic setups.
It was surprisingly easy to mess up, or having your translation bundles have cached out of date versions in the browser.
(nothing against other web servers, Apache2 was just a good fit for other reasons)

by danburzo

1 subcomments

As many have pointed out here, the nature of caching has changed in the current climate of ubiquitous HTTPS, and I want to add a paragraph or two about it. Is there a good summary somewhere that I could reference? What are the the usual, most prevalent uses of HTTP intermediaries involving caches, besides CDNs and origin-controlled caches (eg Varnish)?

by nesarkvechnep

0 subcomment

For 10+ years in the industry I can safely say that almost nobody knows or cares about HTTP caching. It’s sad.

by aleksandrm

3 subcomments

This is nothing new and doesn't add anything new to the topic, so am I the only that thinks this is just an attempt at boosting their SEO through HN?

by baggy_trough

9 subcomments