OK, I’ll admit it: for reasons unbeknownst to myself and the people around me I actually pronounce it caché – with an attractive acute accent over the ‘e’ that makes it sound a lot like café. I know what you’re thinking, “My, he seems very suave”. I bet you can almost imagine me sitting by the computer holding a long-drawn cigarette pouting excessively to the air after saying it, can’t you? Well, I don’t smoke but yes, I do pout excessively after saying it. It’s actually pronounced “cash” and it’s known in many forms when talking about computers but today I am going to quickly mention about web cache and how clearing it can cure a few browser headaches.
An internet browser’s web cache helps speed up your web viewing by temporarily storing (or caching) files and information about a website and it’s pages you once visited. It actually helps minimise information passed across your network as your browser calls on a version of the website already saved on your computer.
When should I clear it?
- If you think a webpage is not opening or operating properly. Let’s say you’re logging in with a new username and password combination with webmail and an error occurs
- To view fresh website changes (even after a page refresh/reload)
- Clearing the cache is safe and should not delete any important information. Clearing it every now and again is good maintenance
Clearing a web cache is easy, and can be found in your web browser’s preferences, tools or options under the privacy tab. It may be hidden in a sub-directory under “Clear History” in some browsers (i.e. Firefox), but doesn’t clear your Web History as that is kept separate from the cache.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for reading
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