Disable CSS JS Cache vs Speculative Loading

Disable CSS JS Cache is a powerful yet lightweight plugin that helps WordPress developers and site administrators manage browser caching for CSS and JavaScript files. This is particularly useful during development, testing, or when making frequent changes to your theme files. Key Features Disable CSS/JS Caching – Adds dynamic timestamps to CSS and JS files to prevent browser caching Smart Cache Busting – Choose between timestamp-based or file modification time-based versioning Performance Mode – Selectively cache-bust only CSS, only JS, or both CDN Support – Option to apply cache busting to CDN-hosted files Admin Bar Toggle – Quick enable/disable from WordPress admin bar Statistics Dashboard – Track how many files are being cache-busted Admin Notifications – Optional reminder when cache busting is active Clear Cache Button – One-click to clear WordPress and compatible caching plugins Browser Caching Control – Optionally enable browser caching for static assets (images, CSS, JS, PDF) Configurable Cache Duration – Set custom cache duration for static assets (60 seconds to 1 year) Automatic .htaccess Management – Automatically adds and removes caching rules from .htaccess Exclude Paths – Exclude specific files or paths from cache busting Development-Friendly – Perfect for development environments where you need to see changes immediately Production-Ready – Enable browser caching for better performance on live sites Clean Uninstall – Removes all settings and .htaccess rules when uninstalled How It Works When “Disable CSS JS Cache” is enabled, the plugin appends a current timestamp to all CSS and JavaScript file URLs on the frontend. This forces browsers to fetch fresh versions of these files instead of using cached versions. The browser caching feature allows you to add caching headers to your .htaccess file for static assets, improving site performance by reducing server requests. Use Cases Development Environment – See CSS and JS changes immediately without clearing browser cache Staging Sites – Test changes with confidence that you’re seeing the latest files Production Sites – Control browser caching for optimal performance Troubleshooting – Quickly determine if issues are cache-related Settings Access the plugin settings from Settings > Disable CSS JS Cache in your WordPress admin: Enable Cache Busting – Turn cache busting on/off Cache Busting Method – Choose Force Refresh (timestamp) or Smart Refresh (file modification time) Performance Mode – Select Both CSS & JS, CSS Only, or JS Only CDN Support – Enable cache busting for external/CDN files Exclude Paths – Add files or paths to exclude from cache busting Admin Bar Toggle – Show quick toggle in admin bar Admin Notice – Display reminder when cache busting is active Browser Caching – Enable/disable .htaccess caching rules Caching Duration – Set how long browsers should cache static assets Additional Information Support For support, feature requests, or bug reports, please visit the plugin support forum. Contributing This plugin is open source. Contributions are welcome! Privacy This plugin does not collect or store any personal data. It only stores plugin settings in your WordPress database. Technical Details Filters Available style_loader_src – Modifies CSS file URLs script_loader_src – Modifies JavaScript file URLs Requirements WordPress 5.0 or higher PHP 7.0 or higher Apache server with mod_headers enabled (for browser caching feature) Writable .htaccess file (for browser caching feature) File Structure disable-css-js-cache.php – Main plugin file includes/ – Core plugin classes uninstall.php – Cleanup on uninstall languages/ – Translation files Compatibility Compatible with all WordPress themes Works with major page builders Multisite compatible Translation ready

This plugin adds support for the Speculation Rules API, which allows defining rules by which certain URLs are dynamically prefetched or prerendered. This core Speculative Loading functionality was merged into WordPress 6.8, but it only prefetches with conservative eagerness by default. In contrast, this plugin defaults to prerendering with moderate eagerness (i.e. when interacting with a link), and it provides a user interface to customize the mode and eagerness via the “Speculative Loading” section on the Settings > Reading admin screen. By default, speculative loading is only enabled for logged-out users, since unauthenticated pages are typically only eligible for caching and so more efficient to prefetch/prerender. This means that sites with frequent logged-in users on the frontend—such as e-commerce, forums, or membership sites—will not benefit from the feature. If your server can handle the additional load (for example, with persistent object caching), you can opt in to enable speculative loading for all logged-in users or for administrators only. This setting exclusively affects frontend pages; admin screens are always excluded. A filter can be used to exclude certain URL paths from being eligible for prefetching and prerendering (see FAQ section). Alternatively, you can add the no-prerender CSS class to any link ( tag) that should not be prerendered. See FAQ for more information. Browser support The Speculation Rules API is a new web API, and the functionality used by the plugin is supported in Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome, Edge, or Opera using version 121 or above. Other browsers such as Safari and Firefox will ignore the functionality with no ill effects; they will simply not benefit from the speculative loading. Note that certain browser extensions may disable preloading by default. Browser support for the Speculation Rules API in general Information on document rules syntax support used by the plugin This plugin was formerly known as Speculation Rules.