A Guide To Clear Your Browser’s Cache, Cookies and History

Before we get started on how to clear these, let's take a slightly in-depth look at what these elements are and what the advantages of clearing the cache/cookies are

Cache

The cache is your auxiliary memory from which high-speed retrieval is possible. This means that each time you visit a website, a certain aspect of that website is saved in your browser's memory which helps it retrieve it faster the next time you visit the same website.

Cookies

The main purpose of a cookie is to identify users and possibly prepare customized web pages for them. When you enter a website using cookies, you may be asked to fill out a form providing such information as your name and interests or you may just need to accept a message that says that the website uses cookies. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to your browser which stores it for later use. The next time you go to the same website, your browser will send the cookie to the server. The server can use this information to present you with custom pages. For example, instead of seeing a generic welcome page you might see a page that welcomes you by name or shows when you last visited the site.

Web Browser History

As the name suggests, this is the history of all the websites that you have recently visited. This is more of a user-focused tool rather than a back-end operation like the above 2 protocols. It helps the user remember which websites they have visited over a long internet session and easily locate them when needed. The intent of this functionality is to make the user experience simpler and provide convenience when trying to locate a web page that you may have visited a few days ago but can’t remember the URL for.

• Enhance website Speed and Performance: The more websites you visit, the larger the cache memory. Clearing the cache frees up the memory and results in a better performing webpage/site
• Viewing most recent changes: Since the nature of ‘cache’ is to store elements of websites locally, certain updates made to websites may not appear unless the cache is cleared
• Maintaining Security: when on public computers, it's good practice to clear the cache to avoid misuse of confidential information.
• Fixing Browser Errors: Slow speed, loading issues, page breaks are all resolved most of the time when clearing cache, forcing the browser to download fresh data from the server.

• Faster Performance: when too many cookies accumulate, it causes performance issues. deleting the cookies usually speeds up the response time for the page or site.
• More Disk Space: Sufficient hard drive space is an important consideration for computer users, and deleting cookies on a regular basis will free space on your hard drive. When you start to run low on hard drive space, you may notice a decrease in performance and an increase in the number of system crashes
• Security: While many cookies are harmless, others can be used to track your every move on the Internet. Businesses often use these tracking cookies to study consumer behavior, but many computer users consider them an invasion of privacy.

It’s very important to remember that clearing your web browser's cache, cookies, and history may remove data such as the following:

• Saved passwords
• Address bar predictions
• Shopping cart contents, etc.

While you should clear your web browser's cache, cookies, and history periodically to prevent or resolve performance problems, you may wish to record some of your saved information first.

• For desktop browsers, to quickly open menus used to clear your cache, cookies, and history, ensure that the browser is open and selected, and press Ctrl-Shift-Delete (Windows) or Command-Shift-Delete (Mac). If this doesn't work, follow the appropriate instructions below.
• If the instructions below don't exactly match what you see, you may need to update your web browser to the latest version.
• If you don't see instructions below for your specific version or browser, search your browser's Help menu for "clear cache". If you're unsure what browser version you're using, from the Help menu or your browser's menu, select About [browser name]. In Internet Explorer and Firefox, if you don't see the menu bar, press Alt.