How to force a web browser NOT to cache images

Solution 1:

Armin Ronacher has the correct idea. The problem is random strings can collide. I would use:

<img src="picture.jpg?1222259157.415" alt="">

Where "1222259157.415" is the current time on the server.
Generate time by Javascript with performance.now() or by Python with time.time()

Solution 2:

Simple fix: Attach a random query string to the image:

<img src="foo.cgi?random=323527528432525.24234" alt="">

What the HTTP RFC says:

Cache-Control: no-cache

But that doesn't work that well :)

Solution 3:

I use PHP's file modified time function, for example:

echo <img  src='Images/image.png?" . filemtime('Images/image.png') . "'  />";

If you change the image then the new image is used rather than the cached one, due to having a different modified timestamp.