How to leverage browser caching

[Ecko]

Since I see a lot of people release stuff that uses big ass images and don't know how to cache stuff to increase page load times, I'm going to explain how.

Note: This is for Apache where mod_expires and mod_headers are enabled, although you can read

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for most major web servers. Bits of this was taken from

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.

Edit your .htaccess file:

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# | Proper MIME types for all files                                            |
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<IfModule mod_mime.c>

  # Audio
    AddType audio/mp4                                   m4a f4a f4b
    AddType audio/ogg                                   oga ogg opus

  # Data interchange
    AddType application/json                            json map

  # JavaScript
    # Normalize to standard type (it's sniffed in IE anyways):
    # http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4329#section-7.2
    AddType application/javascript                      js

  # Video
    AddType video/mp4                                   f4v f4p m4v mp4
    AddType video/ogg                                   ogv
    AddType video/webm                                  webm
    AddType video/x-flv                                 flv

  # Web fonts
    AddType application/font-woff                       woff
    AddType application/vnd.ms-fontobject               eot

    # Browsers usually ignore the font MIME types and sniff the content,
    # however, Chrome shows a warning if other MIME types are used for the
    # following fonts.
    AddType application/x-font-ttf                      ttc ttf
    AddType font/opentype                               otf

    # Make SVGZ fonts work on iPad:
    # https://twitter.com/FontSquirrel/status/14855840545
    AddType     image/svg+xml                           svgz
    AddEncoding gzip                                    svgz

  # Other
    AddType application/octet-stream                    safariextz
    AddType application/x-chrome-extension              crx
    AddType application/x-opera-extension               oex
    AddType application/x-web-app-manifest+json         webapp
    AddType application/x-xpinstall                     xpi
    AddType application/xml                             atom rdf rss xml
    AddType image/webp                                  webp
    AddType image/x-icon                                cur
    AddType text/cache-manifest                         appcache manifest
    AddType text/vtt                                    vtt
    AddType text/x-component                            htc
    AddType text/x-vcard                                vcf

</IfModule>


# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# | ETag removal                                                               |
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Since we're sending far-future expires headers (see below), ETags can
# be removed: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags.

# `FileETag None` is not enough for every server.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header unset ETag
</IfModule>

FileETag None

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# | Expires headers (for better cache control)                                 |
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# The following expires headers are set pretty far in the future. If you don't
# control versioning with filename-based cache busting, consider lowering the
# cache time for resources like CSS and JS to something like 1 week.

<IfModule mod_expires.c>

    ExpiresActive on
    ExpiresDefault                                      "access plus 1 month"

  # CSS
    ExpiresByType text/css                              "access plus 1 year"

  # Data interchange
    ExpiresByType application/json                      "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/xml                       "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType text/xml                              "access plus 0 seconds"

  # Favicon (cannot be renamed!) and cursor images
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon                          "access plus 1 week"

  # HTML components (HTCs)
    ExpiresByType text/x-component                      "access plus 1 month"

  # HTML
    ExpiresByType text/html                             "access plus 0 seconds"

  # JavaScript
    ExpiresByType application/javascript                "access plus 1 year"

  # Manifest files
    ExpiresByType application/x-web-app-manifest+json   "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest                   "access plus 0 seconds"

  # Media
    ExpiresByType audio/ogg                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/gif                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg                            "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/png                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/mp4                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/ogg                             "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType video/webm                            "access plus 1 month"

  # Web feeds
    ExpiresByType application/atom+xml                  "access plus 1 hour"
    ExpiresByType application/rss+xml                   "access plus 1 hour"

  # Web fonts
    ExpiresByType application/font-woff                 "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject         "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf                "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType font/opentype                         "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml                         "access plus 1 month"

</IfModule>