MVC Caching: How to Disable Automatic Caching in ASP.Net MVC?

Answer 1

You can use the OutputCacheAttribute to control server and/or browser caching for specific actions or all actions in a controller.

Disable for all actions in a controller

[OutputCacheAttribute(VaryByParam = "*", Duration = 0, NoStore = true)] // will be applied to all actions in MyController, unless those actions override with their own decoration
public class MyController : Controller
{
  // ... 
}

Disable for a specific action:

public class MyController : Controller
{
    [OutputCacheAttribute(VaryByParam = "*", Duration = 0, NoStore = true)] // will disable caching for Index only
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
       return View();
    }
} 

If you want to apply a default caching strategy to all actions in all controllers, you can add a global action filter by editing your global.asax.cs and looking for the RegisterGlobalFilters method. This method is added in the default MVC application project template.

public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
{
    filters.Add(new OutputCacheAttribute
                    {
                        VaryByParam = "*",
                        Duration = 0,
                        NoStore = true,
                    });
    // the rest of your global filters here
}

This will cause it to apply the OutputCacheAttribute specified above to every action, which will disable server and browser caching. You should still be able to override this no-cache by adding OutputCacheAttribute to specific actions and controllers.