What is Browser Cache and How to Clear or ByPass it

Whenever you have some issue with your website or internet connection, the IT support person will suggest you clear the browser cache and delete all cookies. At this time, there is one common question that comes to mind. This question is “What is browser cache and why should I clear it?” In this detailed article, I will try to explain the Browser cache. 

Browser Cache

Browser Cache is a temporary storage place in your system that is used by the browser. When we visit a web page, it downloads a copy of the page in this temporary location. It downloads HTML pages, JavaScript files, CSS files, and images. When we next time request for the same web page, the browser checks this temporary storage and sees whether the local copy exists or not. If it finds the local copy of the page, it serves the page from the local copy. This process saves your internet bandwidth and loads web pages faster. Hence, the cache is very useful for people using slow internet connection.

Why do we need to clear the cache?

As we surf the web, this cache storage grows. Sometimes it crosses the 100 MB size. The fact is that we can not limit the size of the browser cache. At this moment, it takes time to check for a local copy because of its huge size. This makes web browsing slow. Many times, the website has been updated but we are still getting older cache versions. These are a few reasons why we need to clear the browser cache.

Option for clearing cache can be found in the settings of all browsers. If you use any tools to optimize windows performance, it automatically deletes temp and cache files created by browsers.

How to bypass Browser Cache or Clear Cache?

As we know that we need to delete the browser cache at regular intervals, we should know how to do this. If we do not want to delete all cache, we should also know how to bypass the cache for a single website. I am not going to explain the long process for this task. We can simply use Keyboard shortcuts for this. If you are not able to remember these shortcuts, you can simply go to the menu options to clear the cache.

Chrome

Reload Page and Bypass cache:  [Ctrl] + [F5] or [SHIFT] + [F5]

Clear Cache: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Del]

If you are using macOS: [CMD] + [SHIFT] + [R]

Firefox

Reload Page and Bypass cache:  [Ctrl] + [F5] or [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [R]

Clear Cache: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Del]

If you are using macOS: [CMD] + [SHIFT] + [R]

Microsoft Edge

Reload Page and Bypass cache:  [Ctrl] + [F5] or [SHIFT] + [F5]

Clear Cache: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Del]

To clear cache, you can Open Microsoft Edge, select Menu, go to Settings and then select Privacy & services. Under Clear browsing data, select what data you want to clear. Select the “Cached images and files” and “Cookies and other site data” check box and then select Clear.