Load Order

Is it possible to determine?

[Lyndsay]

Is it possible to determine what is loaded first on a web page?

I would imagine it may be different for every browser.

By default, is text loaded before images? In order of HTML? How do tables affect loading order?

[Dijkgraaf]

It is not only the order things are loaded, but also when they are rendered on the screen.
From all I've heard, yes this varies from browser to browser.

[Don_Hoagie]

You can use CSS positioning to advise a browser to load item B before item A... not sure if that's what you're talking about, or whether it was just a generic question about what types of content load first by default.

As for tables... someone here surely has a better answer, as i rarely ever use tables... but here it goes, assuming you're talking about layout with tables:

Browsers need to figure out what a table's structure looks like before it can load, which can cause a lot of confusion. The fact that the beginning of your "wrapper" table in a layout lies atop the code, and the end of the table lies at the bottom of the code, is obviously counter-productive to having any kind of load "order" at all.. laying out tabled designs builds the page from the outside in, and not from the top down, which is how browsers intuitively read code.