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It is commonly said that an @import statement shown up in a CSS file will prevent parallel downloading of these CSS files, while defining them through several HTML <link>s will not incur such a disaster (just one reference).

Is this behavior of @import spec-defined or it is just a matter of current browsers implementation? I've only found this relevant statement in the CSS spec:

The @import rule allows users to import style rules from other style sheets. If an @import rule refers to a valid stylesheet, user agents must treat the contents of the stylesheet as if they were written in place of the @import rule ...

It hardly disallows parallel downloads. So is it possible browsers might change over to parallel downloading at some point?

Ilya Loskutov
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  • Have you actually checked that it does block parallel downloads? The source document from stevesouders.com doesn't say that it does, at least not in modern browsers. – Alohci Jan 12 '22 at 10:16
  • @Alohci Frankly, I haven't. I just came across this statement in a few SO answers and my first reaction was to have a glimpse of the spec. Seemingly, those old answers call for updating. – Ilya Loskutov Jan 12 '22 at 10:36

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