Prefetch with Firefox

This is a new feature of Firefox using a conventional tag, but whose implementation has been modified by Mozilla.

Firefox loads a new page while the user is reading the page already loaded, which is especially useful when a long article is divided into several pages: the following will be displayed instantly at user request as it is already in memory.

How to use it

There is nothing to edit on the site if the pages have a rel=next attribute, otherwise add the following tag:

<link rel="next" href="anotherpage.html"> 

The next value can be replaced by prefetch if one wants to separate the function from that of the conventional tag.

Bounce Rate

The question that arises is whether the pre-loading is reflected in the bounce rate, in other word if the statistical tools do count two pages?

The browser makes a difference between loading and displaying the page, otherwise the pre-loaded page would launch its own prefetch in turn and so on.
It is when the page is displayed that the loading of the other is running, something that statistical tools take into account.

Disabling prefetch

It is enabled by default in Firefox and it is the variable:

network.prefetch-next 

To disable it, type in the URL bar:

about:config 

and scroll down to this option, then changes the value from true to false.

Reference: Mozilla Developer Center.