How (not) to use HTTP Cache Part 1

HTTP cache is one of the most misunderstood technologies in the internet. Because of it flexibility to customize to any scenario, people often find it hard to configure it. As a result it will leads to problems and ultimately people loose faith and disable the cache all together.

You have two options. Either you can understand the implementation and use the configuration or directly jump to configuration. Skip ahead to part 2 if you only wants to look at the configurations.

What is Browser Cache?

All the modern browsers are equipped full implementation of HTTP cache. Which abstract lots of functionality behind few headers that the application developer can use to signal the browser, the shape of the cache it needs.

Web cache is not only for static or CMS websites. Most of the features the web cache are useful for Single Page Applications. With a proper implementation of Web Cache, loading time of web applications can be improved drastically and it will leads to less load for servers too.

Browser Cache vs HTTP Cache

HTTP Cache is the specification that can be used to cache any resource along the route from the actual server to the client. This includes proxies, intermediate servers etc.. Browser Cache is a browser…