Using Javascript to override or disable meta refresh tag

Question

I have a website, where I am trying to use Ajax to update some stuff on the page without reloading it. However, there is a good chance that many of my users will be using mo

Answer 1

Just remove the meta tag with javascript:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;http://new-url/" id="meta-refresh">

<script type="text/javascript">
var mr = document.getElementById("meta-refresh");
mr.parentNode.removeChild(mr);
</script>

I've set the refresh timeout to 2 seconds above just as an example. You could probably get away with 1 second as well, but don't set it to 0 because the javascript won't get a chance to execute in that case. 0 is also annoying because it breaks back-button usability.

Edit 2012-10-23 This does not appear to work any more. The node still gets removed, but it appears that browsers parse and hold in memory all meta tags any way.

Answer 2

I've found that the noscript tag works quite nicely for this. For example, you can place this just after you close the head element:

<noscript>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;URL=http://www.example.com">
</noscript>

No need to remove the meta tag with script, since a browser that has script support will ignore everything inside the noscript element.