Web Cache and Cookies - Why and how you should empty your browsers web cache and web cookies occassionally

Clean your web browsers cache and cookies

Internet web browsers like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator have become increasingly 'intelligent' over the years. Ever noticed how sites that you visit for the second (or more) time will load much quicker? Or maybe you noticed that your username is automatically entered in your webmail account or that you remain logged in on your favorite forum/message board (or automatically get logged in upon return). Today's internet browsers keep track of practically everything you do on the web storing information about your habits on your PC without ever asking you if they should.

This convenient 'browser intelligence' is achieved by two methods: Web Browser Caching and Web Cookies.

Web Cache

The dictionary describes a cache as a storage place especially intended for storing provisions. And even though the computer scientists always seem to manage to attach a whole set of different terms to describe a cache the idea in general is the same.

All our internet browsers maintain a 'large' storage room on our computer intended for web site information such as pictures, movies and other things we can generally find on web sites. Storing this information on your PC will allow your browser to just retrieve pictures and the like from your own PC instead of having to contact the web site and downloading the information all over again. This is especially helpful if you visit a particular site often or if you don't have a very fast internet connection and loading pages just seems to take forever.

Of course, as you can imagine, the browser cache can only store information about sites you have visited. In order to store all information about every site on the internet you would need to store information about well over 70 million web sites. If you imagine every web site to be a grain of sand this would amount to approximately 300 pounds of sand which you would not only need to store (in your office) but also categorise so you can find each grain of sand whenever you need it.
We don't need to be computer scientists (or construction workers) to know that storing and categorising that much 'sand' would be a pretty hopeless venture (even for a computer).

Web Cookies

The second method of browser intelligence is known as a 'cookie'. The term cookie has been around a long time in the world of computers and despite our best hope of it being a low-fat low-sugar and yet tasty treat to internet users it actually is defined as “an opaque piece of data held by an intermediary”. For the purpose of clarity we will ignore that definition and call our cookie just that, a cookie.

Cookies are used by web sites to be able to tell who you are, what your interests are and how often you come to a web site. They can maintain personalized data for a specific web site (your preferred settings for example) make it possible for web site administrators to keep their web sites interesting to you, help out with buying and selling items on eBay and even make your next login easier by storing basic information.

In short: cookies maintain information about you and for you making it possible for web sites to recognize you when you come back.

Cookies are stored as simple (and thankfully harmless) text files by your browser on your hard disk and is in some cases directly linked to your internet cache (but usually stored separately).

Unfortunately, all this convenience comes at a price. Your cache could flood (fill up until there was no room remaining) causing your browser to be unable to display pictures, load sites incorrectly or even crash on a regular basis. And with the convenience of having your username and other personal information stored in cookies also comes the risk that someone else could gain access to your personal data (this does not always have to be someone actually using your computer!). Web sites can use and abuse cookies to display ads or find out what you are up to and even can go as far as to abuse the personal data in cookies to provide you with fresh email spam (unsolicited emails) every day.

Even though we will hardly ever notice the existence of our cache or our cookies we should take care to clean up both once in a while.

Below follows a short description on how to clean up your cache and clear out your cookies for various internet browsers after which we will take a quick look on how to control the incoming flood of 'cacheable' and (not so tasty) cookies.

It is important to realize that once you have deleted your cookies and/or internet cache you will lose all information cached/stored! This will result in often visited sites to load slower (for example the next time you go the site after cleaning your system you will need to re-download that sites pictures) and will also result in sites no longer recognizing you as a known user (you'll just have to log in manually once to get a new cookie).

Clearing the cache general information

If you are running an older version of the internet browsers discussed below we recommend updating it to the newest version for optimal performance. If you have no intention of updating you can consult any search engine to find the appropriate method of clearing your cache by performing a search on (e.g. for internet explorer): 'Clearing cache Internet explorer x' where x would be your current internet explorer version number. Of course 'internet explorer' can be substituted for another browser type if applicable. This search method will also work for other browsers not discussed here.

Internet Explorer 5 and 6

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. From the top menu, click Tools > Internet Options.
3. Click the General tab.
4. Under Temporary Internet Files, click the Delete Files button.
5. Click the OK button.


Netscape 6.x and 7.x (for PC)

1. From the top menu bar, click Edit, and select Preferences.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Click Cache.
4. Click Clear Memory Cache button.
5. Click the Clear Disk Cache button.
6. Click OK.


Netscape 6.2 (for MAC)

1. From the top menu bar, click Edit, and select Preferences.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Click Cache.
4. Click Clear Memory Cache button.
5. Click the Clear Disk Cache button.
6. Click OK.


Netscape 7.x (for MAC)

1. From the top menu bar, click Edit, and select Preferences.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Click Cache.
4. Click Clear Cache button.
5. Click OK.


Clearing out cookies general information

Putting the lid on the cookie jar is quite easy for most browsers. If you are having trouble with cleaning out your cookies or your internet browser is not listed below please consult a search engine with the following phrase: 'deleting cookies internet explorer x' where x would be the current version of your browser. Naturally you can replace 'internet explorer' with any other browser name if you do not use internet explorer.

Internet Explorer 5

1. Open your explorer
1. Click Tools, Internet Options.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Click View Files.
4. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click Settings.
5. On the View menu, click Details.
6. Click the Internet Address column header, and then find the Internet address of the cookie files.
7. Click a cookie file and then press the Delete button on your keyboard. If you are prompted to confirm that you want to delete the file, click “yes”. Repeat this procedure to delete individual cookies. You can delete all the cookies by using CTRL+A to select them all and then click the Delete key on your keyboard. Confirm with yes and wait for your cookies to be deleted.

Internet Explorer 6

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. From the Tools menu, select Internet Options.
3. Select the General tab.
4. Click the Delete Cookies button.
5. Click OK.
6. In the Internet Options window, click OK.


Netscape all versions

1. Search for a file called cookies.txt on your hard drive. 2. Delete the file. The next time that Netscape saves new cookies it will recreate the file.

Internet Explorer 5 (MAC OS 9.2)

1. Click the Edit menu and select Preferences.
2. Select the Cookies option below the Receiving Mail heading.
3. Highlight the cookie you want to delete and press the Delete button.
4. Select multiple cookies by holding down the Shift key while you select multiple cookies.

Internet Explorer 5.2 (MAC OS X)

1. Select Preferences from the Explorer menu.
2. Select the Cookies option below the Receiving Files heading.
3. Highlight the cookie you want to delete and press the Delete button.
4. Select multiple cookies by holding down the Shift key while you select multiple cookies.

Don't forget to delete your cookies and your cache on a regular basis (once a month is a good rule of thumb) and you will successfully prevent a great deal of problems.