Using Javascript to override or disable meta refresh tag

Question

I have a website, where I am trying to use Ajax to update some stuff on the page without reloading it. However, there is a good chance that many of my users will be using mobile browsers that don't support Javascript so I am trying to design the page with meta refresh tags, that somehow work only for users without Javascript. Is there any way to do this?

I tried putting the tag within a noscript element, but my primitive cell phone browser wouldn't acknowledge it. I am thinking of maybe setting a cookie to remember if the user's browser supports Javascript, or having one version of the page that works without Javascript, and tries to use Javascript to redirect the user to a more sophisticated version, but I am wondering if there is a more elegant way to do it. Does anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

I've found that the noscript tag works quite nicely for this. For example, you can place this just after you close the head element:

<noscript>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;URL=http://www.example.com">
</noscript>

No need to remove the meta tag with script, since a browser that has script support will ignore everything inside the noscript element.