Definition of ETag header (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/ETag):
The ETag HTTP response header is an identifier for a specific version of a resource. It allows caches to be more efficient, and saves bandwidth, as a web server does not need to send a full response if the content has not changed. On the other side, if the content has changed, etags are useful to help prevent simultaneous updates of a resource from overwriting each other ("mid-air collisions").
Definition of Cache-Control header (https://developer.mozilla.org/de/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cache-Control):
The Cache-Control general-header field is used to specify directives for caching mechanisms in both requests and responses.
So the ETag header tells the browser for a resource to send a single HTTP request to the server and ask if the file hash has changed. If yes, download a new one. Great. So if the ETag header is set why should I need Cache-Control any more (beside of the Expires header which may help to avoid this single request)?
So if I have to set the Cache-Control header anyway it can only be harmful right? I think the most appropriate value would be:
Cache-Control: must-revalidate
But I am not sure if this triggers unecessary additional actions.