cache control header - which one?

[mihomes]

As the title says... I've read up on the cache control header and while I understand what public is and what private is... is there a benefit to using one over the other?

I have expires, last modified, and etag all present on my pages... what would be a typical cache control most of you use?

[mihomes]

Nobody? I guess my question is what would make me choose public over private?

I understand the definitions of each, however, how does it apply. For instance, if I were to state cache-control as public would this allows password protected areas to be cached?

[coopster]

Pages protected with HTTP authentication are considered private by default and will not be kept by shared caches. But if you drop a public Cache-Control header in there you will indeed change that so beware! And SSL pages are not cached.

RFC2616 [ietf.org] is the authoritative document on the subject and where you can find answers to most any question regarding the HTTP/1.1 protocol.