Detecting Support for data: URIs | Weston Ruter

The data: URI scheme is now supported by the most current version of every major browser, including Internet Explorer. Because of this I wanted to use CSS background images encoded with data: URIs in a current project at Shepherd Interactive. Why? The first rule of High Performance Websites is to Minimize HTTP Requests. By storing background images directly in the stylesheet only one HTTP request is then necessary to fetch the stylesheet and the images all at once. Furthermore, by giving that stylesheet a far-future cache expiration date the browser will never need to request it again.