What requests do browsers' "F5" and "Ctrl + F5" refreshes generate?

Question

Is there a standard for what actions F5 and Ctrl + F5 trigger in web browsers?

I once did experiment in IE6 and Firefox 2.x. The F5 refresh would trigger a HTTP request sent to the server with an If-Modified-Since header, while Ctrl + F5 would not have such a header. In my understanding, F5 will try to utilize cached content as much as possible, while Ctrl + F5 is intended to abandon all cached content and just retrieve all content from the servers again.

But today, I noticed that in some of the latest browsers (Chrome, IE8) it doesn't work in this way anymore. Both F5 and Ctrl + F5 send the If-Modified-Since header.

So how is this supposed to work, or (if there is no standard) how do the major browsers differ in how they implement these refresh features?

Answer 1

It is up to the browser but they behave in similar ways.

I have tested FF, IE7, Opera and Chrome.

F5 usually updates the page only if it is modified. The browser usually tries to use all types of cache as much as possible and adds an "If-modified-since" header to the request. Opera differs by sending a "Cache-Control: no-cache".

CTRL-F5 is used to force an update, disregarding any cache. IE7 adds an "Cache-Control: no-cache", as does FF, which also adds "Pragma: no-cache". Chrome does a normal "If-modified-since" and Opera ignores the key.

If I remember correctly it was Netscape which was the first browser to add support for cache-control by adding "Pragma: No-cache" when you pressed CTRL-F5.

Edit: Updated table

The table below is updated with information on what will happen when the browser's refresh-button is clicked (after a request by Joel Coehoorn), and the "max-age=0" Cache-control-header.

Updated table, 27 September 2010

┌────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  UPDATED   │                Firefox 3.x                    │
│27 SEP 2010 │  ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│            │  │             MSIE 8, 7                      │
│ Version 3  │  │  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│            │  │  │          Chrome 6.0                     │
│            │  │  │  ┌──────────────────────────────────────┤
│            │  │  │  │       Chrome 1.0                     │
│            │  │  │  │  ┌───────────────────────────────────┤
│            │  │  │  │  │    Opera 10, 9                    │
│            │  │  │  │  │  ┌────────────────────────────────┤
│            │  │  │  │  │  │                                │
├────────────┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┼────────────────────────────────┤
│          F5│IM│I │IM│IM│C │                                │
│    SHIFT-F5│- │- │CP│IM│- │ Legend:                        │
│     CTRL-F5│CP│C │CP│IM│- │ I = "If-Modified-Since"        │
│      ALT-F5│- │- │- │- │*2│ P = "Pragma: No-cache"         │
│    ALTGR-F5│- │I │- │- │- │ C = "Cache-Control: no-cache"  │
├────────────┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┤ M = "Cache-Control: max-age=0" │
│      CTRL-R│IM│I │IM│IM│C │ - = ignored                    │
│CTRL-SHIFT-R│CP│- │CP│- │- │                                │
├────────────┼──┼──┼──┼──┼──┤                                │
│       Click│IM│I │IM│IM│C │ With 'click' I refer to a      │
│ Shift-Click│CP│I │CP│IM│C │ mouse click on the browsers    │
│  Ctrl-Click│*1│C │CP│IM│C │ refresh-icon.                  │
│   Alt-Click│IM│I │IM│IM│C │                                │
│ AltGr-Click│IM│I │- │IM│- │                                │
└────────────┴──┴──┴──┴──┴──┴────────────────────────────────┘

Versions tested:

• Firefox 3.1.6 and 3.0.6 (WINXP)
• MSIE 8.0.6001 and 7.0.5730.11 (WINXP)
• Chrome 6.0.472.63 and 1.0.151.48 (WINXP)
• Opera 10.62 and 9.61 (WINXP)

Notes:

1. Version 3.0.6 sends I and C, but 3.1.6 opens the page in a new tab, making a normal request with only "I".

2. Version 10.62 does nothing. 9.61 might do C unless it was a typo in my old table.

Note about Chrome 6.0.472: If you do a forced reload (like CTRL-F5) it behaves like the url is internally marked to always do a forced reload. The flag is cleared if you go to the address bar and press enter.