Android's stock browser (or WebView) - why cache does not persist? How does the cache work?

Question

When the Android stock browser is closed (killed), and started again, it does not cache images - all images loaded the first time must again reload, rather than be fetched from cache.

If the browser is not killed, but all browser tabs are closed, and then the page is accessed again, images(1) are retrieved from cache.

WHY does the browser not cache the images?

This behavior was observed on Galaxy S3, Galaxy tablet, Kindle (WebView), Nexus 7, on OS version 4.0 to 4.3. The same behavior was observed in Android's WebView, which is actually our primary interest however the same behavior is observable on both WebView and stock browser

Chrome for Android does not have this problem and caches images correctly.

(1) images smaller than 2MB

I think posting the code for your WebView instatation could be useful here. — SuperFrog, Oct 05 '13 at 18:45
I don't want to complicate the matter because the exact same behavior is observable with the stock browser. — Greg Bala, Oct 05 '13 at 18:48
This post might be useful: http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2012/07/12/early-findings-mobile-browser-cache-persistence-and-behaviour/ — SuperFrog, Oct 05 '13 at 18:54

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 05 '13 at 18:58

3

You need to use WebView.getSettings().setAppCacheEnabled().

WebSettings provides many additional ways to control the behavior of your WebView, like setDomStorageEnabled(), setSaveFormData(), etc.

answered Oct 05 '13 at 18:58

Jen

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Android's stock browser (or WebView) - why cache does not persist? How does the cache work?

1 Answers1