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| How To...Clear The Cache |
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Operating System April 2000 • Vol.6 Issue 4 |
How To...Clear The Cache | ||
 What You Need To Know Benefits Frees up hard drive space, speeds up backups, and can speed up browser operations Time Five minutes or less Skill Level Easy Each time you visit a World Wide Web page, your browser creates a file containing the text and images on that page. It places this file in cache, which is a bank of high-speed memory set aside for frequently accessed data. Because your local hard drive is much faster than your Internet connection, this allows your browser to display this page much quicker if you visit it again and it is unchanged. The process is much like photocopying magazine articles and keeping the copies on your desk for quick reference. Having the copies handy keeps you from trudging down to the library to look up the article if you want to read it again.  How It Works. When you return to a previously viewed Web page by pressing the Back button, for example, your browser first checks with the server. If the Web page has changed since your last visit, the browser ignores the cached copy and downloads the changed copy from the server. If the page has not changed, rather than downloading it again over a slow Internet connection, the browser displays the one it has saved in the cached file. Space Eaters. As you surf, your browser accumulates more files in its cache. These take up space on your hard drive. This is especially a problem if you have an older file allocation table (FAT) system, such as FAT16, where even small files can take up a lot of space. ( FAT keeps track of the contents of a drive.) If a page you visit changes between visits, the cache can slow down the operation of the browser, as well, because the browser must check the contents of its cache to see if the requested page has changed before it begins its download of the new page. When Windows 98 or most other programs create temporary files, the program automatically deletes those files. However, your browser does not purge its cache when you exit the browser; the cached files remain saved in case your browser needs them the next time you open a page you have visited. Because you rarely need to revisit a Web page that never changes, it makes a lot of sense to clear your cache after a long surfing session or between sessions. Because the browser can always reload a page from its Internet connection, there is no risk that you will lose information when you clear your cache. Clear It. To clear your cache, follow these steps if you use the Internet Explorer browser. In early 3.x versions, click the View menu and select the Options command. Next, click the Advanced tab. In the Temporary Internet Files section of the dialog box, click the Setting button. Then click Empty Folder. For later 3.x and 4.x versions, click the View menu and select either Internet Options or Options, depending on your version. In the dialog box, click the General tab. Then move to the Temporary Internet Files section and click the Delete Files button. Click the OK button to finish. In version 5, click Tools and the Internet Options. On the General tab in the Temporary Internet Files section, click the Delete Files button. In Netscape Navigator 3.x, click the Options menu and select Network Preferences. Click the Cache tab. Next, click the Clear Disk Cache Now button. In version 4.x, open the Edit menu and select Preferences. In the Preferences dialog box, click the plus sign (+) next to the Advanced option. Next, click Cache. Then click Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache. Click OK to finish. (NOTE: In Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, the browser may ask you to confirm the deletion of your cached files. Click either Yes or OK, as appropriate.) Other Options. Advanced users can clear their cache without wading through the Internet Explorer or Navigator menus. Internet Explorer keeps its cache in the C:\WINDOWS\TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES folder in Win98 and in the C:\ WINNT\TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES folder in Windows NT. Netscape Navigator keeps its cache in the C:\PROGRAM FILES\ NETSCAPE\USERS\DEFAULT\ CACHE folder. (NOTE: If you enter a password when you boot, the DEFAULT folder may be your user name but not always.) Deleting the files in these folders, either manually or as part of your Autoexec.bat file, will also quickly clear your cache. To manually delete a file, click the file to highlight it, open the File menu, and select the Delete command. To highlight more than one file for deletion, hold down the CTRL key as you select them.  by Ronny Richardson |
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