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Update prefetch docs with browser support information #8246

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May 15, 2024
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44 changes: 32 additions & 12 deletions src/content/docs/en/guides/prefetch.mdx
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -51,7 +51,6 @@ Each strategy is fine-tuned to only prefetch when needed and save your users' ba

- If a visitor is using [data saver mode](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInformation/saveData) or has a [slow connection](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInformation/effectiveType), prefetch will fallback to the `tap` strategy.
- Quickly hovering or scrolling over links will not prefetch them.
- Links that use the `viewport` or `load` strategy are prefetched with a lower priority to avoid clogging up the network.
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This will no longer be the case as all strategies will internally use <link rel="prefetch"> which has the same (low) priority.


### Default prefetch strategy

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -106,17 +105,6 @@ As some navigation might not always appear as `<a />` links, you can also prefet
</script>
```

You can additionally configure the priority of prefetching by passing the `with` option:

```js
// Prefetch with `fetch()`, which has a higher priority.
prefetch('/about', { with: 'fetch' });

// Prefetch with `<link rel="prefetch">`, which has a lower priority
// and manually scheduled by the browser. (default)
prefetch('/about', { with: 'link' });
```
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The with option is deprecated so I removed this to discourage people from using it.


The `prefetch()` API includes the same [data saver mode](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInformation/saveData) and [slow connection](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInformation/effectiveType) detection so that it only prefetches when needed.

To ignore slow connection detection, you can use the `ignoreSlowConnection` option:
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -154,6 +142,38 @@ export default defineConfig({
});
```

## Browser support

Astro's prefetching uses [`<link rel="prefetch">`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/rel/prefetch) if supported by the browser, and falls back to the [`fetch()` API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API) otherwise.

The most common browsers support Astro's prefetching with subtle differences:

### Chrome

Chrome supports `<link rel="prefetch">`. Prefetching works as intended.

### Firefox

Firefox supports `<link rel="prefetch">` but may display errors or fail entirely:

- Without an explicit cache header (e.g. [`Cache-Control`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cache-Control) or [`Expires`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Expires)), prefetching will error with `NS_BINDING_ABORTED`.
- Even in the event of an error, if the response has a proper [`ETag`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/ETag) header, it will be re-used on navigation.
- Otherwise, if it errors with no other cache headers, the prefetch will not work.

### Safari

Safari does not support `<link rel="prefetch">` and will fall back to the `fetch()` API which requires cache headers (e.g. [`Cache-Control`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cache-Control), [`Expires`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Expires), and [`ETag`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/ETag)) to be set. Otherwise, the prefetch will not work.

**Edge case:** `ETag` headers do not work in private windows.

### Recommendations

To best support all browsers, make sure your pages have the proper cache headers.

For static or prerendered pages, the `ETag` header is often automatically set by the deployment platform and is expected to work out of the box.

For dynamic and server-side rendered pages, set the appropriate cache headers yourself based on the page content. Visit the [MDN documentation on HTTP caching](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Caching) for more information.

## Migrating from `@astrojs/prefetch`

The `@astrojs/prefetch` integration was deprecated in v3.5.0 and will eventually be removed entirely. Use the following instructions to migrate to Astro's built-in prefetching which replaces this integration.
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