How to force the use of the browser cache

If you want to optimize the load time of your site you can force the browser to cache some of the files that are rarely modified. This trick will send the browser a 304 not modified status for files that hasn't been modified so the browser will load them from local cache. This will indirectly save your server from some work.

To implement this, create or edit your .htaccess file and place the following code into it

FileETag MTime Size
<ifmodule mod_expires.c>
  <filesmatch "\.(jpg|gif|png|css|js)$">
       ExpiresActive on
       ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
   </filesmatch>
</ifmodule>