What is browser cache ?
What is browser cache ?
The browser cache is a temporary storage location on your computer for files downloaded by your browser to display websites. Files that are cached locally include any documents that make up a website, such as HTML files, CSS style sheets, JavaScript scripts, as well as graphic images and other multimedia content.
When you revisit a website, the browser checks which content was updated in the meantime and only downloads updated files or what is not already stored in the cache. This reduces bandwidth usage on both the user and server side and allows the page to load faster. Hence, the cache is especially useful when you have a slow or limited Internet connection.
Why Do I Need To Clear The Cache?
The browser cache can get quite large and take up a lot of space on your hard drive, filled with data from websites you will never visit again. While you can limit how large it can get, it is still useful to occasionally clear it to fix problems and speed things up again.
Sometimes, cached versions of a website can cause issues, for example when the browser does not download a fresh copy, even though the site was updated since last caching it. Another evidence for a cache issue is when a website only loads partially or looks like it’s badly formatted. Since the cache lies at the heart of many website-related problems, IT support will recommend that you clear your cache when you report respective phenomena.
The browser cache is a temporary storage location on your computer for files downloaded by your browser to display websites. Files that are cached locally include any documents that make up a website, such as HTML files, CSS style sheets, JavaScript scripts, as well as graphic images and other multimedia content.
When you revisit a website, the browser checks which content was updated in the meantime and only downloads updated files or what is not already stored in the cache. This reduces bandwidth usage on both the user and server side and allows the page to load faster. Hence, the cache is especially useful when you have a slow or limited Internet connection.
Why Do I Need To Clear The Cache?
The browser cache can get quite large and take up a lot of space on your hard drive, filled with data from websites you will never visit again. While you can limit how large it can get, it is still useful to occasionally clear it to fix problems and speed things up again.
Sometimes, cached versions of a website can cause issues, for example when the browser does not download a fresh copy, even though the site was updated since last caching it. Another evidence for a cache issue is when a website only loads partially or looks like it’s badly formatted. Since the cache lies at the heart of many website-related problems, IT support will recommend that you clear your cache when you report respective phenomena.
Updated on: 21/06/2022
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