One reason to disable preload for browser-update JS

Development

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around disabling preload for browser-update JavaScript in Discourse. Gulshan_Kumar questions the purpose of preloading, particularly for modern browsers that don’t need browser update messages. They suggest that preloading is unnecessary and wasteful for users’ bandwidth. Gulshan_Kumar also mentions that most of their audience uses the latest browsers, making support for Internet Explorer (IE) unnecessary.

Gulshan_Kumar would be happy to ignore support for IE, which is being phased out by Discourse in June 2020 Stephen. Stephen and Justin_Vega clarify that IE support is being moved to a plugin and will be removed eventually.

Gulshan_Kumar hopes that the preload will be removed in the next six months. Justin_Vega raises the point about Microsoft Edge, but it is not addressed further in the discussion.

1

Hi,

I noticed Discourse HTML code having below kind of lines

    <link rel='preload' href='/assets/browser-update-xyz24ff41586d6dcda055f0cfb41488724ba2e2d5271fef65ce5f480b46f9231d.js' as='script'/>
<script src='/assets/browser-update-xyz4ff41586d6dcda055f0cfb41488724ba2e2d5271fef65ce5f480b46f9231d.js'></script>

  • What it does?

  • Is it for other browser as well except outdated Internet Explorer?

Please see https://caniuse.com/#search=preload

If browser would be already outdated then

  • How is it going to support preload?

  • I don’t see advantage of preloading at least for modern browser who probably don’t need browser update message.

I am not sure if this is related to just Internet Explorer or other too, in case IE; may be we can just use conditional HTML comment line instead using JS? This would be lightweight.

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
	<div>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.discourse.org/faq/#browser">your browser is too old to work on this site</a>. Please <a href="https://browsehappy.com">upgrade your browser</a></div>
<![endif]-->

Top 10 Web Browsers
1 Chrome 78 38.51%
2 Safari 13 8.65%
3 Chrome 77 5.89%
4 Safari 12 4.25%
5 Firefox 70 3.57%
6 IE 18 3.17%
7 IE 11 2.99%
8 Samsung 10 2.44%
9 Chrome 76 1.82%
10 Chrome 74 1.44%
Source: W3Counter: Global Web Stats

  • Is it still neccessary?

Thanks & Regards,
Gulshan

2

AFAIK IE is still supported until June, although support is currently being moved into a plug-in.

3

Most of my audience are familier about latest browser. I would be happy to ignore support for IE.

4

Move Internet Explorer support to core plugin

Discourse will be dropping support for Internet Explorer in June 2020. (A formal announcement will be made mid-January). In preparation for this, Internet Explorer specific code has been moved into a plugin, making it easier to remove come June.

Source

5

Why would preloading be a problem? I do not understand your request.

6

For rest browsers, it’s not worth wasting users’ bandwidth for unused preloaded resources.

7

There’s no such thing as IE 18.

8

It has been ok for the past ~six years.

Six months more isn’t a big deal. The reason to spin out IE support is more to reduce complexity than any burden created from preloading.

9

What about Microsoft Edge?

10

I hope, in next 6 months it will be removed.