11

Is there a browser that supports refreshing a page every say, 5 seconds? Is there an add-on?

If not, is there a more simple way than writing a full (C# or Java) program in order to do that?

Added: Opera is horrible! I set Stack Overflow to refresh every 5 seconds, but when I click on a post, it refreshes it every 5 secs too! I just wanted the main page to refresh every 5 seconds.

Another "Added": apparently it refreshes the current tab, so as long as I open the post in a new tab, it works great.

3
  • 1
    Whatever solution you select, it might be good to see what is being refreshed. Like Drostie's Greasemonkey option will NOT make your browser request cached things again (which is GOOD), while other solutions might make your browser request ALL anew. This is like the difference between typing a URL (or a bookmark, or hitting Ctrl-L followed by Return) compared to hitting refresh. The latter makes most browsers even ask the server if cached things need updating. That slows down things.
    – Arjan
    Oct 16, 2010 at 12:10
  • 2
    Also, some solutions might render the refreshed page in a nicer way than other solutions -- like I would hate to see a page being fully rendered all over again. Also, I assume most (if not all) answers imply that the browser will scroll back to the top of the page? (Curious about which answer turns out to work best for you!)
    – Arjan
    Oct 16, 2010 at 12:13
  • superuser.com/questions/110233/…
    – random
    Oct 16, 2010 at 12:55

8 Answers 8

7

Yes, Opera supports this feature out of the box. Go to the webpage, right click and select Reload Every.

See the following screenshot for illustration:

reload every in action

You might also be interested in the Check4Change extension for Firefox.

2
  • Not sure if it is available in current version
    – NoChance
    Aug 12, 2018 at 12:47
  • not available now
    – Amruth A
    Aug 20, 2019 at 12:10
13

Or for Firefox, use the following one-liner as a Greasemonkey script:

setTimeout(function(){ window.location.href = window.location.href; }, 5000);
7
  • 2
    window.location.reload(false) - developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.location is at the least more readable, if not faster. Also, if you're using a Greasemonkey script, you can always GM_registerMenuCommand instead of always refreshing on that page.
    – Hello71
    Oct 16, 2010 at 14:08
  • @Hello71, without trying in Greasemonkey but when using Safari on a Mac: just pasting the following in the location bar, javascript:window.location.href=window.location.href renders MUCH nicer than javascript:window.location.reload(false) (which completely clears the window first). Given the documentation, I don't understand why though...
    – Arjan
    Oct 16, 2010 at 15:52
  • @Arjan: With a little testing, I found out that setting window.location.href to itself only reloads if the page does not have a hash at the end of it (#12345).
    – Hello71
    Oct 16, 2010 at 17:19
  • @Hello71, again just using the location bar, not Greasemonkey: javascript:window.location.href=window.location.href works fine for me (testing with Stack Overflow, without anything such as Web Inspector open, and taking the cache of the site itself into account as well). But: your findings might make sense, as the hash is not included in location.href, as it's really client side only.
    – Arjan
    Oct 16, 2010 at 17:31
  • @Arjan: Firefox doesn't even send a request, according to Firebug and my poor skills with Wireshark.
    – Hello71
    Oct 16, 2010 at 17:32
4

Opera has a Reload Every option built into it.

If you use Firefox you can download the ReloadEvery addon.

3

you can do with /bin/bash and links (or any other command like curl or wget)

while true;                                                                                                                                                 
do
    links http://127.0.0.1:3000 -dump > /dev/null 
    sleep 2
done

if you need to see the html use -source instead of -dump ;-)

2

Use the iMacros addon! It is available for IE, Firefox and Chrome.

iMacros is a great (and open source) web browser macro recorder addon, and refreshing a website is dead simple with it. Use this macro:

  VERSION BUILD=7000928 RECORDER=FX
  REFRESH
  WAIT SECONDS=5

and start it with the LOOP button.

If you want to make sure that the page is really completely reloaded (not from cache) use the CLEAR command and reload the complete website via URL GOTO command:

  VERSION BUILD=7000928 RECORDER=FX
  CLEAR
  URL GOTO=http://superuser.com/
  WAIT SECONDS=5

alt text

1
  • +1 Looks interesting.. I should consider if it's worth the effort though, as there are "out of the box" solutions.
    – Oren A
    Oct 16, 2010 at 17:52
2

I'm using the Auto Refresh add-on for Firefox and it works great.

1
  • Please refer to this meta post when answering questions with a product recommendation. Jan 14, 2013 at 15:36
0

To enable auto refresh in Chrome, download and install the Auto Refresh Plus extension from the Web Store.

To integrate the feature in Firefox, download and install Auto Refresh add-on, the one that Nuno recommended, and restart your browser. Then open the web page you want to refresh and select the time period of auto refresh from the right-click menu under the Auto refresh option.

Just like Om Nom Nom said, auto reload option is available in Opera by default and thus one does not need an extension.

Here is the link to the original articol with screenshots and more information:

http://www.guidingtech.com/12491/auto-refresh-pages-chrome-firefox-opera/

2
  • 1
    Can you summarize the information at the link in your answer in case the page disappears.
    – jonsca
    Sep 7, 2013 at 23:18
  • Welcome to Super User! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.
    – slm
    Sep 7, 2013 at 23:53
0

Here is a solution for those who cannot install any external extensions...

var w = window.open(window.location.href);
setInterval(function(){w.window.location.reload()},10000)

this will duplicate a tab and reload it every 10 second (10000 milisecond), change it as required

put above code in a book marklet converter like https://mrcoles.com/bookmarklet/

here is the bookmarklet for it, add this to bookmark panel

javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20w%20%3D%20window.open(window.location.href)%3BsetInterval(function()%7Bw.window.location.reload()%7D%2C10000)%7D)()

or you can click on this to try it out... (or drag to bookmarklet panel)

https://gist.github.com/Vaisakhkm2625/ca8b9acd5517eb768b14f05c7a98bcfe

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