Simple tip to remember when testing your website changes – porn mode

Privacy

Well ok “porn mode” is kinda funny and I am sure has nefarious uses – but there is actually a really good one from a developer’s perspective.

Incognito (Chrome) or Private (Netscape) or InPrivate(IE) mode forces the browser to not use the cache and/or history and stores nothing about your browsing session (hence porn-mode for the cynical)

But what it does for me as a developer is that it forces an empty cache – without me actually having to empty my cache. An empty cache all the time is not really beneficial for a developer and or normal user because there are obvious speed benefits to caching. But when a customer claims the changes you made have not worked – tell them to go porn mode on their browser. Once they understand the issues is caching on their side the conversation changes.

You’ve gone incognito. Pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close all open incognito windows. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however. 

Legitimate uses for porn mode

PS
SHIFT-F5 also forces the browser to ignore the cache and reload everything – but that is not as funny 🙂