It is recommended that you clear cached data from a device periodically in order to get the best performance from your browser. When you clean cache or cookies from your computer, you will notice that pages load faster and that the browser works more efficiently.
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Learn what a cache and cookie is to get an idea of how clearing these will help with browsing.
Every time you visit a website you generate information such as active logins, download history, cache, cookies.
The browser stores this information by creating files for every web page so that it doesn’t have to retrieve the same data each time you make a visit.
When a copy of a web page already exists within the browser’s storage space, then the browser won’t need to download page elements again but merely access stored information.
One example of this is when the web browser stores shopping cart content or authentication data.
A cookie or cache is thus information stored by a web browser in order to speed up user browsing.
Cache represent web page elements such as graphic files and photographs (but is not limited to these) while cookies are simple text files that help websites keep track of a browsing session.
Clearing your browser from cookies and cache will speed up future browsing sessions.
Note that unless you experience technical issues online (i.e. trouble logging in, bugs when trying to load a website, crashing), you don’t need to clear cookies and cache very often.
But when you do experience issues, emptying the browser of cookies and cache will most likely solve your problems.
How to clear in Chrome:
- In the upper right corner of the window, click on the picture showing three short horizontal lines. This will open up a menu.
- In the menu, select the More tools option, and then click on Clear browsing data.
- Select the time range, which is anything from the beginning of time to last hour.
- Select the items you want to clear (you may want to clear only history, or clear browsing history, or empty cookies etc.).
- Then click Clear data.
How to clear in Firefox:
- In the upper right corner of the browser, click on the image showing the three short vertical lines with the inclined line to open menu.
- In the menu, click on History, and then on Clear recent history.
- Choose the time range to clear, click on Details to select items, and finally click on Clear now.
How to clear in Internet Explorer:
- Click the image in the upper right corner of the window for the menu.
- Then click on Safety and Delete browsing history.
- Uncheck Preserve Favorites Website Data if checked, then select the data to clear and click Delete.
It may take a few moments if you haven’t cleaned your browser in a long time, but once this is finalized, you will get a message along the bottom of the screen.
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Clean either periodically or regularly to have your device run smoothly plus free up some space on your computer.