Question

I want to prevent the page from actually reloading and then run the function reload() when the user presses the F5 key.

Is that possible, and how?

Answer 1

You can prevent refresh on f5 using preventDefault jsfiddle

document.onkeydown = function(e){
    if(e.keyCode == 116){ // f5 keycode is 116
       e.preventDefault();
       e.returnValue = false; // for IE
    }
}​