[1] It is the earliest polling mechanism available for the web[citation needed], allowing a user to see the latest update in a frequently-changing webpage, such as ones displaying football live scores or weather forecast.
There are legitimate uses of meta-refresh, such as providing updates to dynamic web pages or implementing site controlled navigation of a website without JavaScript.
Many large websites use it to refresh news or status updates, especially when dependencies on JavaScript and redirect headers are unwanted.
The simplest way of JavaScript redirect using the onload property of the body tag: An alternative method is to provide an interaction device, such as a button, to let the user choose when to refresh the content.
Another option is using a technique such as Ajax to update (parts of) the Web site without the need for a complete page refresh, but this would also require that the user enable JavaScript in their browser.