Web pages taking forever to load?
Even with a high speed Internet connection, over time you may see your browser speed decrease to a crawl, no matter what website you try to access. While this could be caused by a number of things, your first move is to clear your browser cache.
Your browser stores both images and text on your local computer in an area called cache. If it needs to display those files again, it’s quicker to get them from your local machine than from the webserver. Unfortunately, over time the cache grows, until eventually it is full of outdated information. Clearing the cache and restarting the browser could be the solution!
Boring as it may sound, periodically house cleaning is essential for the health of your browser. But do this only when your browser becomes sluggish, or you will negate the purpose of cache. And be aware that once you clear the cache, it will take a little longer to load some pages, until it “restocks” itself.
Be sure to close and reopen your browser after clearing the cache!
How to clear cache depends on what browser you are using. The following lists the steps to take for a few of the most popular browsers.
In Firefox:
Select Tools > Options.
Open the Advanced panel and click the Network tab.
Click the Clear Now button inside the Offline Storage section to clear the cache.
(You can adjust the size of your cache here. The default is 1 GB.)
In Internet Explorer 8 and 9:
Click on the Gear icon in the upper right corner.
Click Internet Options.
On the General Tab, under Browsing History, click Delete…
Put a check next to Preserve Favorites website data
Also put a check next to Temporary Internet Files
Now click Delete Files to clear the cache.
In Internet Explorer 6.x – 7.x:
Select Tools.
Select Internet Options.
On the General Tab, under Browsing History, click Delete…
Next to Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Files to clear the cache.
Chrome
Click the wrench at the right side
Click Tools > Clear Browsing Data…
Choose the time period that you want to clear your data – anywhere from “the past hour” to “the beginning of time”
Check “Empty the cache”, then click Clear browsing data.
Safari
Click on the Gear icon in the upper right corner.
Click Reset Safari…
From the menu, select the items you want to reset, and then click Reset. As of Safari 5.1, Remove all website data covers both cookies and cache.
Opera
Under Tools, click Delete Private Data
Under Detailed Options, check only the boxes next to Delete session cookies, Delete all cookies, and Delete entire cache then click the Delete button.
