[DJ Maze]

You might have noticed that Firefox doesn't refresh the page anymore.

This is because Firefox doesn't react anymore to the "Refresh" header.
According to RFC 2616 there hasn't been no such header anyway.

Why such header existed in the first place was simple:
1. HTML pages can't send headers
2. Internet Explorer doesn't read headers properly
3. IIS servers disallowed to modify/sent headers
So microsoft invented the header to allow IE and other non-conform browsers to have an alternative to the "Location" header including the benefit of a delay option, and it works in the absense/disabled JavaScript.

The Refresh header has been of discussion for many years already. Why use it?
The most common reason is no reason anyway:
"To allow people to read a message before redirect/refresh"

But what if you are unable to read/translate the message within the given amount of "delay"?
Now there's food for thought

Personally i agree with the Firefox developers to abandom the header since there's no "best" delay anyway when it comes to readability.
Secondly, these days any serverside language (PHP, ASP, Perl, etc.) can send the Location header.


What is your opinion?