What Is Cache and How To Remove It

What is browser cache?

In order to speed up web browsing, web browsers are designed to download web pages and store them locally on your computer's hard drive in an area called "cache". Browser cache (also know as Internet cache) contains records of every item you have viewed or downloaded while Internet surfing. So when you visit the same page for a second time, the browser speeds up display time by loading the page locally from cache instead of downloading everything again.

Although storing Internet cache makes web browser faster as it usually takes your computer less time to display a web page when it can open page's elements or even the entire page from your local Temporary Internet Files folder, You sometimes want to overrule the Internet cache, for Example to see changes you made to a webpage you just uploaded. On Refreshyourcache you can find tutorials on how to refresh the cache from your browser.

Clearing Cache Memory

To ensure you see the latest version of a site you need to clear the cache memory. This is done by doing a force refresh by pressing both control and F5 buttons simultaneously on your keyboard (depending on your browser). Most times a simple force cache refresh won't work and you need to clear the cache by hand. On this site you can find step by step guides for Chrome, Firefox 3, Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 6, Safari and more on how to refresh your cache.

Force Refresh

Someone just told you to “force reload” your browser to fix something. Depending on your operating system all you need to do is the following key combination:

Windows: ctrl + F5
Mac/Apple: Apple + R or command + R
Linux: F5

Cache and Privacy

Internet cache can threat to your privacy as everyone who has access to your computer can see some personal information by simply opening the cache folder.
Also when the cache fills up, performance can slow down and your hard drive may run out of space.

Internet Service Provider Cache

In the same way that your web browser has a cache of recent web pages, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may be doing some caching on your behalf.

In some (rare) cases, even though you are using shift-refresh to get new data from a webpage, the pages still seem to be old. This may be because your Internet Service Provider also has a cache and their cache may not be set up quite right, and they are not downloading the latest web pages.

When you encounter this problem you will have to communicatie with your ISP to fix this problem.

How to Clear Your Browser Cache

As mentioned, deleting your cache will delete stored data, logins and more information so proceed with caution.

Chrome

Open Chrome and click the row of three vertical dots in the top right-hand corner (at the end of the address bar) to open the settings menu. Go to "More Tools" and select "Clear browsing data." Click the checkboxes for Cookies and other site and plug-in data as well as cached images and files.

Use the menu to select the amount of data you want to delete – this ranges from removing everything from the past day, to "the beginning of time" if you want to clear everything. Once you've made your choices, click "Clear browsing data."

The process is similar for Chrome on Android and iOS.

Safari

Select "History", then "Clear History" to remove the saved data on Safari. A drop-down menu will appear, which lets you decide to delete all data from the last hour, today, today and yesterday, and all history. This deletes your history as well as your cookies and the entire browser cache.

Alternatively, select an entry from the list, right click and choose Delete if you want to remove indvidual sites.

Firefox

Click the menu button, select "History", then "Clear Recent History." Choose how much of your history you want to clear by selecting the time range. Next, click the arrow alongside Details to select exactly what information will be cleared. Your choices are described in the What things are included in my history? section in Mozilla's FAQ.

Finally, click the "Clear Now" button.

Internet Explorer

Go to "Tools", via the Gear Icon, click "Safety" and select "Delete browsing history." This menu can also be opened by holding Ctrl+Shift+Delete. Select which data you want to delete by unchecking the revelant boxes, and by checking both Temporary Internet Files and Cookies. Click Delete.

Android

You can clear the cache on Android, to free up phone space for example, in Settings. Go to "Apps" (or "Applications", depending on your device) in the menu, find the app want to clear the cache or data for and tap on "Storage." The buttons for clearing the cache and app data will become visible and you can see how much storage is being used, and clear it.

iOS

In a similar way to Android, go to "Settings," "General," "Storage & iCloud Usage" and, in "Storage," select "Manage Storage." To see the storage being used by individual apps, choose it from the list and go to Documents & Data. If it's is taking up more than 500MB, deleting and reinstall to clear space.


Source:
*) https://refreshyourcache.com/en/cache/