HTTP no-cache headers: pros and cons

[RedWingFan]

I am considering turning off the no-cache HTTP headers to cut down on resource usage. I know the advantage is that users will always get fresh content.

On the downside, I'm wondering how much stale data would be pushed out to our visitors. Has anyone noticed a difference in forum behavior after turning off the no-cache headers?

[IBxAnders]

I am considering turning off the no-cache HTTP headers to cut down on resource usage. I know the advantage is that users will always get fresh content.

On the downside, I'm wondering how much stale data would be pushed out to our visitors. Has anyone noticed a difference in forum behavior after turning off the no-cache headers?

(This is a guess) I am thinking not much; you would cache the style elements and that would affect updates in the style manager - however, this should not affect the thread, avatar and other content.

[RedWingFan]

My styles, icons, etc. are static--in fact, the static files are hosed at SimpleCDN.

I'm wondering if a page like viewforum.php is cached by browsers or not. I've occasionally had members complain that a page they accessed was out of date, where the browser might have considered the page to have static content if it were not forced to refresh. (I'd blame a faulty browser for that, actually.) My concern was that stale pages might be viewed in visitors' browsers if the no-cache header was not there.