How to clear browser cache
Running out of disk space? Can't stop your browser from loading an out-of-date page or an image? Your browser taking longer to exit? Your favorite Java applet is misbehaving?
One of the answers to all of the above questions may be to clear your browser's cache. Almost all web browsers maintain a local copy of web pages and other related items on your disk or memory to speedup reloading of previously visited pages from the Internet. This time saver may get bigger and slower over long periods of time. If this is causing problems, try clearing your browser cache as follows.
| | TIP: | Although it's not required by all browsers, restarting your browser after clearing the cache is a good idea. If you're using Explorer 4.x or Explorer 5.x it's better to restart the computer as well. |
•
Navigator 3.x:
- Select "Options | Network Preferences..." from the main menu
- Change to the "Cache" tab
- Click on "Clear Memory Cache Now" and "Clear Disk Cache Now" buttons to clear memory and disk cache
•
Communicator 4.x:
- Select "Edit | Preferences..." from the main menu
- Change to the "Advanced | Cache" section
- Click on "Clear Memory Cache" and "Clear Disk Cache" buttons to clear memory and disk cache
| | TIP: | Navigator 3.x and Communicator 4.x users: If you're often having to reload frequently updated pages, you may want to take this chance to set "Verify Documents" option to "Every Time." This will make the browser retreive the latest copy of a web page even if it's in the cache. |
•
Explorer 3.x:
- Select "View | Options..." from the main menu
- Change to the "Advanced" tab
- Click on "Settings" button
- Click on "Empty Folder..."
| | TIP: | If you're running out of hard disk space, you could reduce percent of disk space used by Explorer 3.x for its cache by sliding the "Amount of disk space to use" guage. |
•
Explorer 4.x:
- Select "View | Internet Options..." from the main menu
- Change to the "General" tab
- Click on "Delete Files" button
| | TIP: | If you have Explorer 4.x Active Channel subscriptions, check "Delete all subscription content" to delete cached channel content as well. |
•
Explorer 5.x:
- Select "Tools | Internet Options..." from the main menu
- Change to the "General" tab
- Click on "Delete Files" button
| | TIP: | If you have stored web pages for offline viewing, check "Delete all offline content" |
•
America Online 3.x (with Explorer 3.x):
- Select "Members | Preferences" from the main menu
- Click on the "WWW" button
- Click on "Advanced..."
- Click on "Purge Cache" to clear the cache
| | TIP: | Be sure to check "Cache web pages and graphics locally" (which should be enabled by default) to speedup surfing. |
•
America Online 4.x:
- Select "My AOL | Preferences" from the main menu
- Click on the "WWW" button
- Change to the "General" tab
- Click on "Delete Files" button
| | TIP: | If you have Explorer 4.x Active Channel subscriptions, check "Delete all subscription content" to delete cached channel content as well. If you have stored web pages for offline viewing, check "Delete all offline content" |
