diff --git a/.npmrc b/.npmrc
index 2fc2adde3..981561a13 100644
--- a/.npmrc
+++ b/.npmrc
@@ -4,4 +4,3 @@ fetch-retries=100 # try 100 times to download a pkg
 fetch-retry-mintimeout=1 # 1ms between retries minimum
 fetch-retry-maxtimeout=10000 # 10s between retries maximum
 fetch-retry-factor=2 # increase timeout by 2x each retry
-prefer-offline=true # don't hit the network for packages that are already in the cache