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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-02T05:29:24+00:00

My objective here is to load scripts asynchronously when the browser supports defer or

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My objective here is to load scripts asynchronously when the browser supports defer or async.
If the browser supports neither I don’t care about asynchronous loading (not my bad).
I want to make sure that any script is only executed when the prerequisites for it are fulfilled e.g. jQuery loaded.
I want to load my scripts while other scripts are being loaded (only if the browser supports defer or async).

I want to do this using only the browsers’ API. I don’t want the browser to load any reliable (or not) scripts that do that for me no matter how small they are.

This must work with IE8+, Gecko v.1.9.1+ (e.g. firefox 3.5.* or firefox 9.0+), webkit (e.g. chrome), presto (e.g. Opera). For the ones I didn’t mention the version, I mean the latest stable version.

If possible I don’t want any non easy scripts. I just need something simple to do this job. This means:
If possible, I don’t want stuff like AJAX calls or fancy Objects with some methods to do some workarounds like I’ve seen in other pages. Those are to force async loading of the script in browsers that do not support async or defer

I repeat: I don’t need any fancy things to make a script asynchronous. If the browser does not support defer or async I don’t care. I just care is that the script is loaded so that each part is executed after its prerequisites are met and use async or defer if the browser supports it.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    First, using a library such as jQuery makes this whole process infinitely easier, and reliable across browsers. It may increase the download size of your pages (by a very small amount) but the speed gained by efficient script loading/executing will nearly always outweigh that.

    Regarding script async and defer attributes:

    1. async="async": on a script tag is not supported at all by IE8/9, script executes immediately (which is ok according to your question).

    2. defer="defer": on a script tag will begin loading after everything in the order the defer scripts appear in the HTML, prior to DOM Ready. BUT, on Firefox, scripts will often execute AFTER dom ready. This difference makes defer unreliable as a means of ensuring that scripts are loaded before executing functions after dom ready.

    General Guidelines when not using jQuery:

    1. If a script has downstream dependancies you have to place it as a standard script tag at the end of the body tag and have your inline tags all execute after document ready. Otherwise there is no guarantee that the script will be executed prior to the execution of the dependencies. Firefox is the main issue here, a “defer” script may not have finished even after DOM ready.

    2. If a script has no downstream dependnacies, then place it at the end of the body tag, and use async=”async” attribute on the script tag. IE will render it immediately and the others will render it when they receive it.

    General Guidelines when using jQuery:

    1. Place only jQuery in your <head>.

    2. Execute all other scripts as $.getScript().

    3. If a script needs to execute ASAP (such as analytics) use a $.getScript at the top of the body (this will be a non-blocking request, but will process as soon as the client receives the file).

    4. If a script can wait till DOM ready, wrap the $.getScript() call in $(function() {});

    5. If a script has many downstream dependancies, have each one register itself to the callback function for a specific script. 

      $(function() { 
    $.getScript("script.js", function() {
      for(var i = 0; i < myCallbacks.length;i++) {
        myCallbacks[i]();
      }
    });
  });
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