Refreshing a page?

[DefragMyHead]

why does it take longer to load a page if you hit the refresh button than if you just click in the address bar and hit enter? I don't know why I started playing around with it, but I found the refresh button is almost always slower?!

 

[talldude123]

Something must be messed up in your computer.

In my previous Celeron 533, it took longer to go to pages in history then to go to a new site.

 

[DefragMyHead]

nono, like if you mark the time from when I hit the refresh button and then you mark the time from when I hit enter in my address bar, the latter way--from click/enter to load--is faster...Im talking about loading the same page.

 

[talldude123]

Which browser are you using?

Have you tried others?

 

[DefragMyHead]

I'm using Firefox, and I won't change. It's not like "my discovery" is a nuisance; in fact, it is barely noticeable. BUT, I did think it was odd that pages loaded quicker when I hit enter in the address bar than when I hit "refresh/reload."

 

[Death Row]

I'm pretty sure, it's because when you type it in the browser, it will bring it up from whats already in your cache, so its notibly faster. but when you refresh the page, you are re-downloading the page from the server, so thats why it takes longer

 

[DefragMyHead]

That does make sense.

 

[Alvin.C]

Re:

I'm pretty sure, it's because when you type it in the browser, it will bring it up from whats already in your cache, so its notibly faster. but when you refresh the page, you are re-downloading the page from the server, so thats why it takes longer

...When you press F5 in Firefox, it will still reload the page using data already in the cache.

You have to hold Shift + F5 to force the browser to grab the webpage from the web server.

A good way of seeing this happen is by going to a webpage with many images, and comparing a refresh (F5) to a force refresh (Shift + F5). You'll see image placeholder icons until the images are downloaded from the server, when performing a force refresh.

A tech-forums webpage is a good for demonstrating this because of all the image buttons at the header.