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Sometimes, my sisters drive me nuts...

Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:16 pm
by JellyFish
My sister's tend to think that by clearing the browser's cache, history, cookies, etc. it will make the computer run faster. I don't think this, and I'm sure all the developers here would probably agree with me. Having temporary files on your computer doesn't make it slower, right? It'd be a big shock to me if this were true. But, unfortunately, my sister's don't believe me.

So, is there any way you can help by writing something convincing enough to set their thinking straight?

Thanks for reading. :lol:

Re: Sometimes, my sisters drive me nuts...

Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:23 pm
by John Cartwright
Clearing all the temporary data will make your browser run faster. However, clearing it every day is probably not going to make a difference. I generally clear mine out once a week which I found is a happy medium between convinience and maintenance.

Re: Sometimes, my sisters drive me nuts...

Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:58 pm
by JellyFish
How does it make it run faster?

Re: Sometimes, my sisters drive me nuts...

Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 8:15 pm
by John Cartwright
Without getting too technical as to how hard drives work, they will read data faster when they are empty (or less full).

Essentially all the tempoary files that build up over time are put in place to cache data. However, as this cache becomes excessively larger, most of which are files you are likely never to access again, your computer has to search through for particular files from a larger database.


Although asking if clearing your cache will make your computer run faster? Not Likely. Will it make your browser run faster. Probably (once your cache becomes large enough).

Re: Sometimes, my sisters drive me nuts...

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 6:53 am
by matthijs
But isn't there a limit to the size of the cache? In most browsers you can set the size. So my guess would be that once your cache fills up, the older files are replaced by the newer ones.

Besides, the whole point of a cache is to speed things up because you don't have to download everything (again).