Do Modern Browsers Download Unused Images Defined in CSS?

Browser Handling of Unused CSS Images

When defining CSS rules, it's possible to include an image URL, even if there's no matching element on the page. This raises the question: will the browser download these unused images?

The answer depends on the browser's implementation of the CSS specification. In a recent test, several major browsers exhibited the following behavior:

• Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE8, and IE7 do not download unused CSS images.
• IE6's behavior is unknown.

This suggests that most modern browsers are optimized to avoid unnecessary downloads and save bandwidth by ignoring unused images. However, it's worth noting that browsers' behavior may change in future updates, so it's always advisable to use caution when including large images in your CSS files.

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