Many of us have heard of the word “cache”, but only a few do actually understand what significance it plays. There are times when looking for solutions online, we see thing such as clear browser cache, do you know why they ask this? If not allow us to explain. Cache is basically what’s stored on your browser.
It’s usually downloaded materials. They could be images or even web pages as a whole. The reason your browser or even your computer does this is so as to reduce wait time/loading time. For instance, your browser would normally check its cache folder every time you load a web page.
It checks if there is a copy of the file on there that it can use in order to load the page faster. The issue with cache is that it does get corrupted at times thus leading to even longer load speeds or even errors when loading pages. Depending on the browser you use, there are different ways of clearing your browser cache. Let’s begin:
Clear Browser Cache in Google Chrome
- In this browser, you’re going to have to navigate to the “Settings” which can be found in the menu section. This is normally represented by 3 horizontal bars on the far-right corner.
- Once you’re in the settings page, you’ll need to click on show advanced settings options at the bottom of the screen. Some more options will pop up.
- You’re going to look for the one written “Privacy Setting.” Clicking on this will give you more options with one of them being “Clear browsing data.”
- This is the last step a dialog box will pop up. You’ll check the box that says empty the cache. You also have the option to choose the time period from which you want the cache to be dumped. Your options are from the beginning of time, the past hour, the past day and so on.
Clear Browser Cache in Mozilla Firefox
Here’s another popular browser that many people use. To clear browser cache you’re going to need to:
- Go to the menu section, which similar to chrome is in the upper right corner with 3 horizontal bars.
- You’ll want to click on the “Options” from the resulting menu. This will open up another window with different tabs.
- Click on the last tab which will be the “Advanced” In this tab, there will be some sub-tabs to choose from.
- Pick the “Network” sub-tab, and you’ll see a button written, “clear now”. Once the button is clicked, you’ll click the “Ok” button at the bottom, and that’s it.
Clear Browser Cache in Safari
Users of the MacBook will be happy to know that they haven’t been forgotten. It’s also just as easy as in the other browsers.
- You’ll need to click “Safari” on the upper left corner of the browser.
- This will bring up some options form which you’ll choose “preferences.” This will give you a window with a bunch of tabs.
- Similar to Mozilla, you shall go to the last tab written “advanced.”
- From here, you shall select the “Show Develop” Menu in Menubar This will add the option to Safari’s menu by default.
- To clear cache, click on the “develop” menu, and you’ll find the “empty caches” Select that, and you’re done.
Would you like any other browser to be included in our list? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.