It’s one of the things we say the most. If we got paid a pound for every time we said it, I swear we’d be rich! So why do we say this so much and what actually is browser cache anyway?  

What is the browser cache? 

Every time we go on the internet, a wee bit of information is stored on our device. This could be anything from web pages to images etc. The benefit of this is that it speeds things up. Images are usually ‘heavy’ in terms of bandwidth, so having them stored locally on site gives the user benefits of a faster (and therefore better) user experience. 

What are the downsides to a web user?

If a developer changes a page and you’ve not cleared your cache as an end user; then you’re essentially looking at an older version of the page. This is why sometimes you’ll not see what we’ve done and why we ask you to clear your cache down! Doing this means that the first visit to your site could be a bit slower, but any subsequent visits should be a lot speedier.

OK, So how do I do it?

As with anything in technology, different platforms have different terminology for the same thing, just to confuse us all!

Remember that if you’re clearing browser cache, you can also be potentially clearing things such as shopping cart contents, saved password and visited sites. Below is a handy guide on how to do it all…

Mobile Browsers

Chrome for iOS

• Go to the menu and select Settings
• Select Privacy
• Select Clear Browsing Data
• Pick the type of data you want to clear
• Select Clear Browsing Data
• Close all your browser windows and reopen.

Safari for iOS

• Go to your settings app
• Open Safari
• Select Clear History and Website Data
• Close all your browser windows and reopen

Chrome for Android

• Go to Setting and choose Apps or Application Manager
• Go to the All tab
• In the list of installed apps, find your browser then select Clear Data and then Clear Cache
• Exit your browser sessions and reopen.

Chrome for Android

• Open the settings
• Select Advanced Privacy
• Select All Time from the time range
• Check Cookies and Site Data and Cached Images
• Select Clear Data
• Close all your browser windows and reopen

Desktop Browsers

Chrome

• In a browser select the three dots at the top right of the window or enter chrome://settings/ the browser and select Clear Browsing Data
• Select History then Advanced (or just advanced if you did the latter)
• Select what you want to clear
• Select Clear Data
• Close your browser window and reopen

Firefox

• From the History menu select Clear Recent History.
• Select the desired time to clear from the dropdown
• On the details section pick the elements of the history to clear. To clear everything select All Items
• Click on Clear Now
• Close all your browser windows and reopen

Microsoft Edge

• On the top right click the icon which looks like a star with three lines
• Click on the History Icon, then select Clear All History
• Select Browsing History, then Cookies and Saved Website Data and then Cached Data and Files
• Select Clear
• After the message appears, close your browser and reopen

Safari

• From the Safari menu, select Clear Cache and Website Data
• Select the time range and then click Clear History
• Go to Safari, and then Quit Safari to exit your browser completely.

There you go, that’s it! It’s not as bad as you think is it? 

Just as a side note, if you’re a Windows user and you’re still using IE versions prior to IE11, they are no longer supported. If you’re still using these browsers, then you really need to upgrade to a newer version!

Did this help? We’d love to hear if it did!