Is there a way to tell IE to check for newer versions of the web page without configuring the browser itself?

Question

Is it possible to tell IE from front-end/back-end code to do the following settings?

check newer versions of page every time page is visited

I've tried adding the following headers:

<meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="expires" content="-1">
<meta http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-store">

but it still doesn't work since I have to set that the page be checked for newer versions of the page (see the first image).

This is a .NET MVC app

I agree with Athanasios Kataras's answer. How do you check if the page is cached? You can use F12 dev tools to check cache: https://i.stack.imgur.com/4ucJj.png. Besides, I find some other threads you can refer to. You can also check [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12948156/asp-net-mvc-how-to-disable-automatic-caching-option/12964123#12964123) and [this thread](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1160105/disable-browser-cache-for-entire-asp-net-website). — Yu Zhou, Feb 19 '21 at 03:04

Athanasios Kataras · Answer 1 · 2021-02-18T13:43:59.693

1

For MVC it is actually pretty easy:

Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);  
Response.Cache.AppendCacheExtension("no-store, must-revalidate");
Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); 
Response.AppendHeader("Expires", "0");

The meta headers are totally unreliable: Using <meta> tags to turn off caching in all browsers?

For global setting in your global.asax:

void Application_PreSendRequestHeaders(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
}

edited Feb 18 '21 at 13:43

answered Feb 18 '21 at 12:48

Athanasios Kataras

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I have tried doing this, but it seems the page is still being cached. [Here](https://i.imgur.com/uFszbtY.png) are the response headers – Justin Feb 18 '21 at 13:18
Your cache-control is not no-cache. It's private – Athanasios Kataras Feb 18 '21 at 13:34
how can I set the cache control? – Justin Feb 18 '21 at 13:41
Check the updated answer for global setting – Athanasios Kataras Feb 18 '21 at 13:44
I have [tried](https://i.imgur.com/PMfoFql.png) but somehow can't use the `Response` object? – Justin Feb 18 '21 at 14:19
Use middleware - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34287959/application-presendrequestheaders-and-application-beginrequest-in-asp-net-mvc-6 – stuartd Feb 18 '21 at 14:36
It's .net not core. – Athanasios Kataras Feb 18 '21 at 14:37
@AthanasiosKataras I got it to [work](https://i.imgur.com/ou4hTK7.png) but it still seems to cache the page – Justin Feb 18 '21 at 15:07
You can check if that's true in the network tab of developer tools. I doubt it does cache it. Maybe caching occurs higher up the chain (maybe web server)? – Athanasios Kataras Feb 18 '21 at 15:21
@AthanasiosKataras IE caches ajax responses for ajax calls which was causing the issue – Justin Feb 19 '21 at 13:37
The get requests could be cached indeed. – Athanasios Kataras Feb 19 '21 at 13:45

Is there a way to tell IE to check for newer versions of the web page without configuring the browser itself?

1 Answers1