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> Some browser scan for links on pages and speculatively load them so that if you were to click on them it loads instantly. Anything like that is user (the bro
by chrismorgan 3y ago
> Some browser scan for links on pages and speculatively load them so that if you were to click on them it loads instantly.
Anything like that is user (the browser acting as their agent). You’re obviously not responsible for that. You didn’t ask it to do that automatically, unlike <link rel="stylesheet"> and <script> and the likes.
- charcircuit 3y agoHow is the link tag any different? It's also a link which is optional to access. One's user agent could choose not to request it. script tags are optional too.
- chrismorgan 3y agoThey’re radically different. Things like <link rel="stylesheet">, <script> and <img> are subresources: instructions to the browser to fetch and use the specified resource, so that the page can be rendered properly. As you say, the user agent can choose to ignore these instructions (and text-mode browsers will generally ignore all three of these subresource types), but the page will probably be materially compromised, and the developer placed the subresource there with the expectation that it will be loaded. A hyperlink is a reference to another page altogether, that it’s up to the user to access if they choose to. It’s not a subresource.