Did you know that your browser stores temporary files on your computer whenever you visit any webpage? This is done so that the browser can load the page faster when you visit it next time. This is the reason you will notice that pages you visit often load faster than others on your computer. Even though this seems like an advantage in the beginning, the problem begins when your browser stores too many temporary files known as cache in your computer. This can eat up a lot of space in your computer and slow down the performance. In this regard, it becomes essential to get rid of the browser cache from your system.
Things to know about browser cache
- Before you begin to clean your browser cache from your computer, you need to know many important things about them.
- Different browsers save the temporary files in different locations on your computer.
- In this regard, there is no standard method to clean them from your system.
- If left alone, they can consume a lot of space on your computer and slow down your computer even though you are having a high speed internet connection.
- There are many methods to remove all these files from your computer at once.
- Even though it looks very convenient to do so, it can affect the performance of your computer.
- You may not want to remove some temporary files of important web pages that you visit very frequently.
- In that sense, you can even remove it manually.
- Cleaning your cache memory frequently can drastically increase the speed with which the web pages load on your computer.
How to clear cache in different browsers?
Firefox
- Open the Firefox browser and locate the History tab.
- It is located on the top of the browser.
- Here, there is an option to Clear Recent History.
- It will ask you for the time range for which you intend to clear the files.
- You can select it for a single day or a week or a much higher range.
- Click on Clear now to clean the browser cache.
- Remember that this is not reversible and your temporary files will be gone forever.
Internet Explorer 6
- Open Internet Explorer 6 and select the Tools option.
- From here, select Internet Options and go to the General tab.
- Click Delete Files and select “delete all offline content” to clear the browser cache.
Internet Explorer 7 and 8
- Open the browser and go to Tools option.
- Select Internet options and go to the General tab
- Choose Browsing History and click on Delete.
Internet Explorer 9 and later
- Open the browser and go to Tools option.
- Choose Safety tab and select Delete Browsing History.
- Select Temporary Internet Files and Cookies option and click Delete.
Safari
- Open the browser and go to Safari tab.
- Here you can select Empty Cache option.
- Click Empty
Opera
- Open Opera and go to Tools option.
- Choose Delete Private Data and click on Delete.
- This will clear cached data completely.
Chrome
- Click on the icon on the right hand top and select Tools option.
- Select Clear Browsing Data and choose the period.
- Click Clear Browsing Data to clear the cache.
What is DNS cache?
The Domain Name System of the browser stores all the IP addresses of the websites accessed by the users on the computer. This is done so that the computer can easily access the IP addresses in the future, even if the servers are changed. In some cases, when websites change their servers, users will get a DNS error. This is where your DNS cache will come in handy and help you locate the new IP address easily. However, you may need to delete the DNS cache if you repeatedly get such errors while visiting such sites. Once you clear the DNS cache, your computer will be able to update the latest IP address of web pages and store them in the cache. Let us see how this can be done in an easy way.
How to clear DNS cache?
Windows operating system
- You need to open the DOS command window to clear the DNS cache.
- Locate the Start button on the left bottom of the system.
- Click on Run and type “cmc” in the window.
- Enter the command “ipconfig/flushdns” in the window and press Enter.
- This will clear the DNS cache from your system.
Mac OS X operating system
- You need to go to the terminal window to perform this task.
- Click on Applications and select Utilities.
- From here, you can access the Terminal window.
- Type the appropriate command for the exact version of your OS and click on Enter.
- This will clear the DNS cache from the system.
Google Chrome browser
- Open the browser and go to the address tab.
- Type “chrome: //net-internals/#dns” and press Enter.
- This will display the list of internal DNS cache.
- Select Clear host and delete the DNS Cache.
Linux
- Go to the terminal window of your OS.
- Enter the code “sudo /etc/init.d/nscd restart”.
In some versions this may not work and you have to use a different code.
Ubuntu Linux
- Open the terminal window on Ubuntu.
- Enter the code “sudo service network-manager restart”.
- This will remove the DNS cache from your system.
In this manner, you can easily clean the DNS and browser cache from your computer. With latest updates being added to the browsers and operating systems, the procedure to delete DNS cache may vary slightly and you will have to check out the process from the support documents released from the official sources. When you perform the DNS clean up once in a while, you will notice that your computer runs faster and will open web pages in quick time. It will also help your computer to store the latest temporary files and IP addresses of web pages and ensure that they work properly on your computer.
