Yes, browsers make a new request in order to view the source, because they don’t retain the original page source after parsing it (because the corner case of “v

Yes, browsers make a new request in order to view the source, because they don’t retain the original page source after parsing it (because the corner case of “view source” is the only thing that could conceivably have any use for it at all, so it’s not worth wasting memory on). One alternative that I’ve found useful on occasion is to Select All (Ctrl+A / ⌘A), then in the page context menu, View Selection Source. That shows you the current DOM, serialised to HTML, which is sometimes easier to look at than the dev tools.