Comments on: Find out the last modified date of the web page you are viewing

By: Roelfke

Roelfke — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:58:44 +0000

None of them work properly. All of them render the current date and time.

By: samoik

samoik — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:04:43 +0000

Lol, it does not work in general, it shows today date

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:38:25 +0000

works with IE but not in Google Chrome

By: Small Business Helper

Small Business Helper — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:14:59 +0000

Tested all your comments and they are in accurate…
1.I went to one of my own Underconstruction Pages which I know have not been updated in about a year + they are not dynamic in coding style.
2.I pasted this directly into my browser: javascript:alert(Date(Date.parse(document.lastModified)))
3.It came back with today’s date.

CONCLUSION…
AnilVT is correct. All that code does is tell you the last modifed date of this file downloaded into your browser’s cache directory – In my/this case Firefox v3.6.3.

Incidentally, all of the above is what you can already achieve via Firefox’s ‘Right Click>View Page Info>See modified info’.

SOLUTION…
In my opinion this is the ONE THING THAT I.E. IS GOOD FOR…
One solution I’ve found so far is to open the desired webpage in I.E. > then view the Browser’s actual downloaded files directory. There you can see the true Modifed Date of that File + the Last Accessed Date (your downloaded date).

Internet Explorer example:
IE>Tools>Internet Options>General Tab>Browsing History ‘settings’>View Files.

The location should be something like… C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

Firefox Example:
Unless I’m just unaware, I find Firefox a let down with this; the file names are confusing and not much use.

To learn where your Firefox is storing web cache…
Copy&Paste this into your Firefox addressbar: about:cache

You should be able to see the location of your Firefox’s stored Cache – something like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\uifll7vx.default\Cache

Though, I think you’ll find once there – Firefox file names are confusing and not much use.

Hope the my comments help you!
Steve Walters, Small Business Helper Limited.

By: Cerniuk

Cerniuk — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:16:33 +0000

try bookmarking this instead:

javascript:alert(Date(Date.parse(document.lastModified)))

By: Mr.Rcollins

Mr.Rcollins — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:14:11 +0000

I don’t think it works with dynamically generated pages, such as this blog, as a matter of fact! I tried it with wikipedia, and it shows a date modified of March 25th for the entry on volcano, but the history shows a date of the last modification as of March 22.

That link uses javascript to get the last modified, I guess I’ll need to research into where exactly that date comes from.

By: AnilVT

AnilVT — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:34:25 +0000

Ryan, this doesn’t work at all. While it does show the date – IMO it’s the date and time when this page was last downloaded on my system; and NOT the real last modified date of the webpage. I tested with a page on my site updated last year, but it shows current date. Does that make sense? Check it for yourself

By: David

David — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:29:42 +0000

Works OK on Firefox but not on IE7

By: Wendy Golski

Wendy Golski — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:16:07 +0000

works on Firefox… not on Safari