Why do some websites automatically reload soon as they open?

Asked by Kraigmo (9055

) June 26th, 2012

A lot of websites seem to be programmed to reload the moment you arrive at it. Most people would never know, but Firefox has an option where it will tell you. Websites I use such as io9.com and rawstory.com do this. Fluther does not do this.

But why is rawstory.com and io9.com doing this? Is it a way of inflating their hits? What is their purpose in this apparent waste?

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5 Answers

I don’t see either of those sites reload when I use Firefox or Chrome.

Brian1946 (32273

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@Brian1946, in order to see such a thing make sure you are on version 13 or above, then go into the Tools menu. Then go down to the Options. Inside Options, press the Advanced tab. Under the Accessibility section, make sure the “Warn me when websites try to redirect or reload a page” thing is checkmarked or ticked. At that point, you’ll see what I see.

Kraigmo (9055

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One of my gmail accounts seems to do this, too, but it’s very obvious that it’s doing it, just from watching the tab. I’m not sure why it’s doing it, but it makes me a little crazy. FF actually freezes up until the gmail tab is done loading and reloading itself. Why would that happen?

augustlan (47745

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