What does each file do on your website? If you built your website from scratch, you probably know. But if you are using a library or you are auditing a new website, it can be tough to determine what each file does. There is an easy way to find out using Chrome DevTools.
Using DevTools, you can block the file from loading and see if anything breaks on the website. What doesn’t work? What doesn’t load? If nothing breaks, then the file is likely not doing anything to alter the front end of the website and more investigation is needed. For example, those may be tracking scripts.
You can block a file from loading using Chrome DevTools. Open DevTools by pressing F12 when you have Chrome open or by right-clicking and selecting “Inspect”. Once you have DevTools open, click Network in the top bar. With Network open, refresh or load the webpage you want to test.
Scroll through the Network table to find the file or files you are interested in testing. This could include CSS or JavaScript files. When you find it, right click on it and choose “Block request URL”. Then reload the webpage.
Once it reloads with that file blocked, see if anything is broken on your website. Is content missing? What features no longer work? Are images or videos not loading? If anything is different, that starts to make this issue more critical. That is especially true if any content is missing from the page.
Alternatively, the content might be there and the page still basically works but some of the enhanced functionality doesn’t work properly. If that is the case, this may not be as critical.
You can right click on that same file again to unblock the resource.
