It’s advice you hear constantly from the Buzz Support Team: if Buzz or any other website isn’t loading properly, clear your cache. You might have even let out a little “hooray!” when the site started working again. And, if you’re like me, you promptly proceeded to not think about the browser cache ever again—until Buzz or another site doesn’t look right again. But in the back of your mind, you might be wondering: what the heck is the cache? Why does clearing it fix things?
In most browsers, you can overwrite a web page’s stored cache without deleting all the cache collected by the browser. In essence, this erases and replenishes the cache for that specific page only. In most browsers and operating systems, you can bypass the cache by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key as you refresh.
- What is a cache?
- Why should I clear my cache?
- What does clearing the cache do?
- Cookies vs. cache: What’s the difference?
What is a cache?
A cache (pronounced cash) is the place where your browser stores images, fonts, and a bunch of other technical-sounding things like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to save bandwidth (the better the bandwidth the better the speed). Without this feature, your browser would run a lot slower because every site you opened would require re-downloading tons of files.
Take, for example, the page you’re currently on. If it’s a company website, the company logo is at the top of it. If you go to that company’s blog, or to another page on the site, that same logo will be there. It’s following you.
Your browser could re-download the logo every single time you visit a different page on this site, but that would be wasteful. So, instead, your browser stores the logo, and all sorts of other things, on your computer—in the cache.
Why should I clear my cache?
With or without Buzz, it’s a good idea to clear your browser cache because it
- prevents you from using old forms
- protects your personal information
- helps applications run better on your computer
When you visit a website, your browser stores
- information (such as the location of the site you visited)
- files used to run an online application
- downloads (such as old versions of forms)
Speaking directly about Buzz, when we update the code, your browser may still use old files. If you don’t clear your cache, you may see old code which can cause display or access problems.
What does clearing the cache do?
Every once in a while, a site will look very odd and clearing the cache will fix it. Our development team is constantly looking at our development sites. Daily the sites look odd, so they clear the browser cache, and they see everything properly.
Why did this help? To vastly oversimplify things, sometimes there’s a difference between the version of a website cached—i.e., stored—on your computer and the version that you’re loading from the web. This conflict can lead to weird glitches, and clearing your cache can help when nothing else seems to.
In my coworker’s case, the backend of the website had recently been updated, which was likely the reason for the conflict.
Cookies vs. cache: What’s the difference?
In most browsers, the options for clearing the cache and clearing cookies are in the same place—but they’re not the same thing.
Here’s the difference:
- Cache: This is where your computer stores files downloaded directly from the websites you visit—fonts, images, that kind of thing. The files in your cache aren’t that different from the files in the cache of someone else who visits the same websites as you.
- Cookies: Unlike your cache, cookies store information about you and the things you’ve done online. If you browse an online store and add a bunch of things to a shopping list, that’s saved using a cookie. Cookies also keep track of which site you’re logged in to—which is why, if you clear your cookies, you’ll need to log back in to all of your accounts. Clearing your cache doesn’t affect any of this.
Now, lets talk about browsers on a computer
How to Clear Your Cache
On A Computer:
Please click on your web browser below to determine the steps on clearing your web browser cache and cookies:
- How to clear your Google Chrome browser cache
- How to clear your Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer browser cache
- How to clear your Mozilla Firefox browser cache
- How to clear your Safari browser cache
And browsers on a phone
- How to clear your iPhone Safari browser cache
- How to clear your iPhone Chrome browser cache
- How to clear your Android Chrome browser cache
Google Chrome
- Find the three-dot menu at the upper-right of Chrome
- Select “History”
- Select “History” (yes, again)
- On the Left Hand Side Select “Clear Browsing Data”
- Check the “Cached Images and Files” Box
- Click the “Clear Data” Button
- Return to the browser tab you were on
- Hold down the Shift key and click refresh (circling arrow in the top left on the nav bar) simultaneously
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer
Edge
- Go to the three-dot menu
- Select “Settings”
- Select “Privacy & Security”
- Select “Clear Browsing Data”
- Check the “Cached Data and Files” Box
- Click the “Clear” Button
- Return to the browser tab you were on
- Hold down the Shift key and click refresh (circling arrow in the top left on the nav bar) simultaneously
Internet Explorer
Still using Internet Explorer (IE)? You’re not alone. Please switch to another browser. Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200. No, seriously, get rid of it. Still convinced that you want to live in 2002 and need to clear your cache? *Sigh*, read further.
- Go to the Gear icon
- Go to the upper left and Select “Internet Options”
- Go to the the “General” tab
- Click the “Delete” button
- Return to the browser tab you were on
- Hold down the Shift key and click refresh (circling arrow in the top left on the nav bar) simultaneously
Mozilla Firefox
In the latest version of Firefox go to the hamburger menu () and section Options > Privacy & Security. You’re instantly in the Content Blocking section; scroll down to get to History. Set Firefox to remember, to never remember, or get some custom settings like remember history, but not cookies, or whatever.
This section also has a Clear History button. Click it to pick a time range to clear (1, 2, 4, or 24 hours—or everything), and what data to dump (history, logins, forms/search, cookies, and cache).
Check the Firefox Account section while you’re in here—if you’ve signed on with a Mozilla Firefox account, your history (plus bookmarks, tabs, passwords, and preferences) may be synced with your other PCs and devices using Firefox, even on smartphones.
Safari
On macOS, Safari rules. Clearing your website visit history is simple: click Clear History in the History menu. Then in the pop-up, pick a timeframe for how far back you want to erase. This is doing a lot more than deleting the browser history, however—it also takes out your cookies and data cache.
You can instead click History > Show History to get a pop-up displaying every site you’ve visited, then take out sites individually, without losing the cookies and cache. Zap cookies by going into Preferences > Privacy; delete your cache by going to the Develop menu and picking Empty Caches. If you don’t have a Develop menu in Safari, go to Preferences > Advanced and check Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar at bottom.
On Your Phone:
Safari
On the iPhone and iPad, Safari is the standard browser. To not record a browser history, you can just stay in Private mode while surfing. When you do have a history to delete, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History & Website Data. Doing this not only takes out the history, but also cookies and other stuff. Plus, if the phone is signed into iCloud, it clears the history on iCloud as well as on other devices hooked into that iCloud account.
If you want to only delete data for select sites, go back to Settings > Safari and scroll down to Advanced > Website Data. After it loads (it can take a while) you’ll see a listing of every website you’ve visited—and probably a lot you didn’t, because it also records the sites serving third-party cookies. Tap Edit > (minus symbol) next to each to delete, or just swipe left for the same function.
Chrome
Google’s Chrome browser is the standard with all Android phones, and is downloadable on iOS. In either, go to the three-dot () menu, select History, and you’re looking at the list of all sites you’ve visited while cognito (as opposed to Incognito)—and that includes history across all Chrome browsers signed into the same Google account.
With iOS, you have the option to either click Edit or Clear Browsing Data at the bottom. If you click the latter (which is the only option on Android phones and tablets), you’re sent to a dialog box (pictured) that allows the eradication of all browsing history, cookies, cached data, saved passwords, and autofill data—you pick which you want to delete. Android users get the added ability to limit deletion to an hour, a day, a week, a month, or the legendary “beginning of time.”
What’s more, on iOS, there is a completely separate Google app for searching (iOS, Android), with its own integrated browser. You can’t delete the history of surfing within that Google app, though you can close all the tabs by clicking the Tabs icon at upper right, swiping one floating window right to delete, then clicking CLEAR ALL. That app’s search history is stored at My Activity, of course.
Firefox
The Firefox browser is available for iOS or Android, free on both platforms. How you delete the browser history in each is a little different.
On iOS, tap the hamburger menu () at the bottom right and select Settings. Scroll down to the Privacy section, and select Data Management. On the next screen you can turn off collection of browser history (or data caching, cookies, and offline website data) entirely. Click the Clear Private Data link at the bottom to clear all of the above. Note in Settings there is also a toggle to Close Private Tabs, which shuts them all down when you leave the browser, should you be using such tabs o’ stealth.
On Android, Firefox uses the three-dot menu () at upper right. Select History to see the list, and click CLEAR BROWSER HISTORY at bottom to nix them all from existence. If you click the menu and go to Settings > Privacy and check the box on Clear Private Data on Exit to get the option to clear the private data of your choice whenever you quit the browser.
Types of Caches
DNS Caching
Additionally, most computers cache DNS which can cause the computer to “remember” the old IP address for up to 48 hours until the next time it updates. If your computer is caching the DNS, it may be possible to flush the DNS on your computer so that it looks up the IP address for the domain again.
Browser Caching
Browser caching has absolutely nothing to do with DNS; however, this can still cause you to see your old page content even after changing your DNS. Browsers will cache a copy of the page content previously viewed by the browser. You can clear your cache to get a fresh copy from the server.