Whenever you have an issue with a website, one of the first suggestions you will hear from Technical support personnel is to try and clear the browser cache or to delete your cookies.. both of which can be very foreign to the untrained ear.

So what is this ominous browser cache? What does it store and what is it good for? Why you need to clear it from time to time will become clearer as we explain the functionality and processes.

The first thing, if you are an avid browser and have been browsing with the same browser for years is, the browser cache can get quite large and take up a lot of space on your hard drive. This means your hard drive can be filled with data from websites you will never visit again. While you can limit how large it can get, it is still useful to occasionally clear it to fix problems and speed things up again.

In other cases cached versions of a website can cause issues. This can happen if the browser does not download a fresh copy, even though the site was updated since last caching it. Other evidence of a cache issue is when a website only loads partially or looks like it’s badly formatted. Since the cache lies at the heart of many website-related problems, our technical support team can recommend that you clear your cache if you are having similar problems.

To clear your browser cache in Firefox, perform the following steps:

Select History – Clear Recent History from the browser navigation menu.

Ensure the “Cache” checkbox is selected. (You may also need to select Cookies if you have had persistent trouble.)

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