HTML Tags Uncovered: Prefetch vs. Preload

HTML is the foundation of the web, and it provides various tags and attributes to enhance the performance and user experience of a website. Among these, two important attributes are prefetch and preload. Although they may sound similar, they have distinct purposes and functionalities. In this article, we will delve into the details of prefetch and preload, understand their differences, and explore examples to grasp their practical applications.

Prefetching is a technique used to reduce the perceived load time of a web page by fetching resources in advance before they are actually needed. It enables browsers to download and cache external resources, such as CSS files, JavaScript files, images, or fonts, ahead of time. When a user navigates to a new page that requires these resources, the browser can retrieve them from the cache, resulting in a faster page load.

The prefetch attribute, introduced in HTML5, is used to indicate to the browser that a resource is likely to be required for future navigation. It hints to the browser to initiate the resource retrieval process and cache it for later use. The syntax for prefetching a resource is as follows:

<link rel="prefetch" href="path/to/resource">

In the above example, the “href” attribute specifies the path to the resource that needs to be prefetched…